fantasia
by PURRcrastination
Summary: In a world where power means everything, what could a shinobi possibly gain from a civilian background? Sakura grows up learning of jedi and magic and archers and knights. (AU) sakura-centric, sakumulti
1. 1 - sakura, say hello

**[Chapter 1]**

Sakura ran across the yard, zigzagging as if someone was shooting arrows at her from behind. Jumping and rolling behind a bush, she narrowed her eyes menacingly, pretending she was Katniss Everdeen, being chased down by the careers.

Imaginary Clove had stolen her bow and arrows earlier, but she was a horrible shot, and Katniss was far from defenceless with her hunting knife. The tree leaves rustled slightly as the hunter made note of all the tributes' positions, gauging the distance between them. Making up her mind, she darted out for only a moment from her cover, throwing the weapon with deadly accuracy and watching with satisfaction as Clove collapsed, the others immediately rushing towards her.

Katniss was faster though, sprinting and picking up the girl's dropped bow in a fluid motion, before ducking under Marvel's spear thrown at her. The girl on fire smirked, now that she had her favourite weapon no one would be able to stop her. Hidden by the foliage once again, she drew back her bow, shooting an arrow at the career closest to her with far more skill than Clove had. Cato fell as well, his humongous and powerful body pierced through the brain by a delicate, pointed, twig. Only Marvel was left now, and Katniss saw him out of the corner of her eye, struggling to retrieve his spear from where it was stuck in the ground. His own force would be his downfall, and the hunter took her time approaching before shooting that final shot into his chest.

She could hear horns blaring, and Claudius Templesmith announcing her as the victor of the 74th Annual Hunger Games, when suddenly her make-believe world was interrupted.

"Sakura!" her mother cried disapprovingly from the doorway. "You're going to be late for your first day at the academy! And have you been rolling around in the mud again? You're filthy and covered in leaves, you're going to have to change clothes now."

Sakura saw her mother leaning against the doorframe with one hand on her hip, dressed in a apron dusted with flour. She loved her mother, she really did, but sometimes the woman was a tad too overbearing.

The eight-year old sighed, setting down her bow and blunted arrows on the ground and retrieving the steak knife from where it was stuck in a tree.

"Yes mum" she said

"And don't tell me that's the bow your father bought you! Are you still playing around with it? It's not a toy Sakura, that's dangerous." her mother chided, aghast, as she saw what Sakura had been holding.

"Yes mum, I know."

Sakura had begged her merchant father for the bow for months when she was four, shortly after reading about Katniss Everdeen in _The Hunger Games_. For her fifth birthday, he had finally given in and presented the beautiful bow made from yew and walnut to her. And she knew it had been hard to find too, imported all the way across the land.

"This was a very expensive gift," Kizashi had told her solemnly, "so you better make it worth it, even if your mother protests". Sakura had nodded with all the seriousness a five year old could, and in the year that followed, she had certainly kept that promise.

"Good, now off you go! If you hurry you still have time to wash!" her mother said, waving her inside.

Sakura smiled, relieved she was getting off so easily, and ran underneath the woman's outstretched arm and into the house.

"Don't track mud all over the carpets Sakura!" her mother called after her.

The pink haired girl ignored the warnings, still grinning from the aftermath of her victory as Katniss. Taking the stairs two at a time she practically flew into her bathroom, locking the door behind her and then turning the knobs in the shower to get the water started. Quickly, she slipped out of her dirty clothes, leaving them in a heap on the floor, before jumping underneath the cold water.

She hummed as she scrubbed the dirt off her skin and out of her hair, watching entranced as the water draining away turned muddy.

With nothing else to focus on, her mind slowly wandered back into fantasy worlds. If only she was a witch like Harry or Hermione, she pondered, then she could clean herself in an instant.

"Scourgify!" she said loudly, waving her hand at herself like a wand.

She heard a voice laughing at her in her head.

" _Scourgify is a fourth-year spell, I'll have you know_ ," her inner Hermione lectured, " _I doubt a six year old squirt like you could pull it off."_

Sakura grinned cheerfully. _But you're the brightest witch of the generation, I'm sure you would teach me how._

She knew inner Hermione was amused at that, in the same way she knew her own emotions.

She'd had voices in her head since before she could remember. Sakura remembered telling her parents about them once, thinking that everyone had them. Mebuki and Kizashi had seemed exceedingly troubled, and she'd heard whispered talks of bringing her to a therapist. That was the last she'd confided in them, and as far as they knew her "phase" of schizophrenia was over. She scoffed.

As she grew older and started reading more novels, those voices had started to take on separate personalities as well, modelling after her favourite characters. Much to her delight, Sakura had named them such, taking comfort in their continuous presence, and finding her first friends in them.

The first had been Hermione, shortly after her distant cousin had gifted her the _Harry Potter_ series for her third birthday. She remembered he had been amused that she had learned to read so early, and he had with a straight face told her the books would change her life. And they had, if maybe not in the way her cousin had suspected.

Inner Hermione sometimes felt more like a parent than her biological ones, and she was certainly much more understanding than they were, being privy to all of Sakura's thoughts and emotions. The intelligent young witch studying at Hogwarts, constantly reprimanded and advised her, but she was always up for some trouble as well, and the ideas behind some of Sakura's most daring escapades throughout the years had come from her.

The next voice to develop was Ahsoka. The padawan of the chosen one, Anakin Skywalker, during the clone wars, the Togruta somehow had maintained a cheerful personality, despite seeing the horrors and betrayals of war. Sakura remembered skimming through pages of comics with wide eyes many years ago, entranced by how the jedi-in-training fought so gracefully with her twin lightsabers.

" _You're going to catch a cold if you stay in here too long."_

The third and final voice belonged to Katniss Everdeen, the mockingjay. Despite having had her presence for the shortest amount of time, Sakura had always known that was who she aspired to be, even before reading about the girl on fire in the stories. She wanted to be as strong as the girl who hunted for her family's survival, and loved even fiercer than the beasts she killed.

 _I know, I know!_ Sakura thought back.

Her skin tinged a bit pink, from scrubbing the dirt off, she quickly turned the water off and toweled her small body dry. She wrinkled her nose at the muddy clothes on the floor and decided to leave them there, wrapping the towel around her small frame before walking across her bedroom and rifling through her drawers for a new outfit.

A minute or so later, dressed in a simple, red long sleeve shirt and loose pants to fit the cool autumn weather, Sakura dashed down the stairs and out the door, with a hurried goodbye to her parents.

The girl smiled, feeling the small thrill from being outside that never faded. Being inside, while not exactly provoking a trapped feeling, would never measure to the sheer joy she took from feeling the warm sun on her face, or the cool rain during a thunderstorm.

Making her way down the small avenue to join with the stream of people walking down Konoha's main street, Sakura pretended she was back in another adventure. She ducked under arms and weaved her way between groups, taking advantage of her small frame.

This time she was Ahsoka Tano, trying to prove she was ready to be a jedi and that she didn't need her master for everything. Her mission was to fly across the galaxy to a newly discovered planet. The trip was hazardous of course, like most were, and Ahsoka had to avoid the many small asteroids and space junk floating around. But the jedi-in-training knew the hardest part was yet to come. After all, her mission entailed meeting and trying to form a friendship with an alien species. Light years away from her home, she would be alone with creatures never before studied.

Ahsoka fearlessly guided the sleek spaceship she was currently flying in between two large chunks of rock, narrowly missing the tips of its wings from being clipped off. Spotting her destination in the distance, she finally began to slow down her reckless pace, and began a slow descent. Studying the dusty planet as she got closer, she noted that most of the population seemed to be waiting outside a large building with an intricate facade, inside which she imagined most of her mission would take place.

Sakura was momentarily drawn out of her illusionary world as she felt a slight hint of nervousness at coming alone. All the other students seemed to be standing with their parents, talking in small groups which didn't seem in the least bit inviting. She didn't doubt they already all knew each other.

 _Perhaps I shouldn't have protested so much against mum and dad coming with me yesterday_ she thought nervously, biting her lip the tiniest bit.

" _Sakura, remember. I am Ahsoka Tano, and now you are Ahsoka Tano, on the path to becoming one of the greatest jedi. We will not fail this mission."_ Inner Ahsoka said.

Sakura took a deep breath, entering back into the mindscape of being someone else, someone strong and not insecure and not weak.

The girl boldly took a few steps into the courtyard where everyone waited. She mingled among the others, trying not to look out of place. She leaned down and pretended to tie her shoelaces at a snail's pace, knowing that having busy work to do made you seem less suspicious.

Finally, after an indeterminate amount of time filled mostly with tying shoelaces and braiding and unbraiding hair, the doors of the ninja academy opened, and so Sakura entered the space with the rest of the first years, determined to make the best of it.

Walking through the hallways behind a tour guide with some of the other students, she felt a bit out of place to be sure, seeing as how all the other kids seemed to be outrageously interested in exploring the relatively boring building.

" _As you should be too. Where are the nearest exits? How do the stairwells prevent movement?"_ Inner Katniss whispered to her.

Sakura didn't blame her. She knew no one survived the hunger games without unconsciously cataloguing these seemingly unimportant facts, and being a shinobi would be the same. She needed to train herself to have constant vigilance.

She felt inner Hermione smile warmly at that, remembering her fourth year at Hogwarts.

Glancing around, Sakura made sure to note the things inner Katniss had instructed her too. She found no illuminating 'exit' signs anywhere, which was curious, since civilian buildings were required by law to have them. However after peering down some hallways as they toured the first floor, Sakura noted that there seemed to only be two entrances; one lead to the front of the school and the other to an outdoor field behind it, where she assumed their physical training would take place.

She narrowed her eyes. There was also an odd lack of windows. And despite the teacher now showing them around not having mentioned anything about the basement area, she had clearly seen stairs leading down to some sort of cellar.

" _This is a shinobi academy, Sakura. Expect that the building was designed for protection."_ Inner Katniss said.

Sakura tried to imitate the emotionless mask she had seen some older ninjas wearing and focused. Now that she thought about it, there were other little signs she had missed. Even the hallways had doors, most likely to cut off fire; there were an odd number of seals scribbled on walls or over doorways, and although Sakura had no idea what they did, she was sure they weren't random graffiti; not only that, but what she had first thought was a broom closet, was actually filled with various weapons.

" _Not a very cozy school, that's for sure"_ inner Hermione snorted.

Inner Ahsoka shushed the witch. " _Shh, you can bore us with more tales about the grandness of Hogwarts later. Let Sakura work on her observational skills."_

The pink-haired girl smiled to herself and tried to take in as much of what their teacher was saying while also memorizing the layout of the building.

"-elcome to the Konoha Shinobi Academy," he said without looking back as he continued to lead them through the school, "my name is Iruka Umino, and I am going to be your sensei for the year."

The walls of the boys' and girls' washrooms were ugly shades of dark blue and bright pink she noted with a tiny amount of disgust.

"Today, since it's our first day I'll try to show you as many aspects of training as I can, which means we're going to head to the main classroom first for a small knowledge test. As well, the main classroom is where you'll come first period every morning, after which the schedule for the day will vary, so make sure to remember where it is!" Iruka said.

Sakura frowned. A knowledge test? But she had just started here... how could she be expected to know anything? She wasn't one of those clan kids who had been trained from birth.

The entire group of about twenty-five or so students and Iruka entered a spacious area with a blackboard at the front and tiered desks arranged in rows.

Iruka gestured towards the empty tables. "Sit wherever you want for now, but if you choose to sit next to friends I'm warning you I might have to break you up later."

She scoffed, well that wouldn't be a problem. Not like she had any friends.

" _Yet. Not like you have any friends yet"_ inner Ahsoka reminded her positively.

Sakura grumbled and gloomily made her way down the rows to choose a seat near the back. It wasn't like she didn't enjoy learning or wanted to escape the teacher's attention, quite the opposite, but her self-confidence had just been dwindling more and more throughout the day.

She remembered playing around in the backyard as Katniss earlier in the morning and sighed. Katniss would never be this scared of failure or rejection.

" _No that's right, I wouldn't, Sakura. So get a hold of yourself and man up."_ her dark haired inner growled.

But the words didn't have the intended effect on Sakura, and her shoulders instead drooped further.

She felt inner Hermione sighing. " _Sakura, don't listen to Katniss. Everyone feels like these fears, even a strong warrior like her. But speaking from experience, there comes a point where you just need to decide if the risk is worth the possible benefit."_ she said quietly.

 _I know, Hermione, and do you think I want to be lonely? I know the benefits outweigh the risks, but I'm just not strong enough like you guys to put my fears aside_ Sakura thought miserably.

" _Sakura,"_ inner Ahsoka said seriously, " _you don't see it, but I do. You have strength, believe me. And if you really can't find it, draw it from us. Pretend this is another adventure."_

Sakura sniffled quietly, ignoring the chatters from students in the rows in front, and nodded resolutely.

Turning to a blond boy with blue eyes sitting two seats down from her, and also looking a bit lonely, she smiled at him.

"H-Hi, my name is Sakura Haruno. What's your name?" she said nervously.

The boy seemed to ignore her for a moment, and Sakura felt her hopes plummet and an awful feeling come into her chest, before he suddenly looked up and around him, and she realized he had assumed she was talking to someone else.

Catching sight of her and meeting her own eyes with impossibly bright blue ones, he looked incredibly surprised.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to ignore you, Sakura-chan! I'm Naruto! Uh- Uzumaki, Naruto Uzumaki!"

She smiled softly, feeling as if she might possibly have a chance after all.

"It's nice to meet you, Naruto-san." She said, biting her lip a tiny bit, "I hope we can be friends."

Naruto nodded expressively, and Sakura saw some unknown emotion swimming in his eyes.

"Me too, Sakura-ch -oh right, sorry, -Sakura-san" he said, giving a wide smile back.

There was an awkward pause during which neither of them said anything, and Sakura was on the verge of just turning her head back down to her table.

" _Don't just quit now! Say something! Ask what he likes doing, or what his favourite food is!"_ Inner Ahsoka hissed.

"Um… Naruto-san, what's your favourite food?" she said shyly.

The blond smiled even wider if it was possible.

"Ramen! Ramen, Ramen, Ramen! I could eat it all day! And old man Ichiraku's is the best of all!" he said, exclaiming with wide gestures.

Suddenly Sakura felt a lot less lonely, and she laughed with him.

"I'm not even joking! His ramen would make anyone want to build a shrine to the ramen gods! You have to try it at some point! I'll take you ther-" Naruto's face fell suddenly.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to be intrusive, it's just this is the first time any of you guys have wanted to be friends with me" he said quietly.

" _Oh the poor boy!"_ Inner Hermione exclaimed.

All the fear from before was gone, and Sakura would have hugged her inners with tears if she could. It was at times like this that she loved and valued them so much she could barely believe it.

Sakura shook her head firmly at Naruto. "I would love to go with you to Ichiraku's sometime, Naruto-san" she said.

Naruto's eyes widened almost comically, and in that moment he looked so happy that Sakura knew all she wanted was to make him that happy again.

The blond boy happily scooted over the empty chair between them and came to sit next to her. "Thank you, Sakura-chan! I would love that too! And there's this other place called Yoshir-"

Sakura let him ramble on for a few more minutes, nodding along and smiling at the boy, and she felt contently happy in having made her first friend.

She heard Naruto stop talking soon enough though, halfway through a speech about why ramen was better than udon, and she turned curiously to see what had made him do so.

Another boy with black hair and eyes had sat down on the other side of her, and was looking at them shyly.

Smiling at him, and desperately hoping to make another friend, Sakura introduced herself. "Hi, my name is Sakura Haruno. What's yours?"

This time she didn't stumble over the name. With a feeling of surprise, she realized she had shed the character of Ahsoka, not needing the padawan's bravery and extrovertedness anymore.

"My name is Sasuke Uchiha," the boy said softly, "it's nice to meet you."

" _Much more well-mannered than Naruto,"_ inner Katniss noted, " _he's probably from one of the ninja clans. This one would be a good one to befriend."_

Sakura smiled widely at Sasuke. "It's nice to meet you too, Sasuke-san."

She gestured to the blond on the other side of her, "this is Naruto-san."

Naruto grinned cheerfully at the black haired boy as well. "Yeah, I'm Naruto Uzumaki! Me and Sakura are going to get ramen from Ichiraku's later! Do you wanna come as well?"

Sasuke nodded eagerly.

"It's 'Sakura and I', not 'me and Sakura'" Sakura said to Naruto chidingly. But her tone was soft and humourous and Naruto could tell she didn't mean anything by it.

"Okok," the boy said, "Sakura, Sasuke-chan and me are going to get ramen from Ichiraku's. Better?"

Sakura was going to correct him once again when Sasuke huffed from beside her.

"I'm not a girl dobe!"

Naruto stuck his tongue out and pulled down one of his eyelids. "Teme!"

"Dobe!"

Sakura sighed and sunk down in her chair, not wanting to be caught in the crossfire.

"Teme!"

Thankfully Iruka decided to start his lessons at that moment, and so Sakura quickly shushed both boys before turning her attention back to the front.

A tiny bit of the fear from earlier had returned as she remembered something about a knowledge test, and she fiddled with her hands nervously under the desk.

Beside her, both Sasuke and Naruto had finally fallen silent, and were focused in the way only students on their first day of school could be.

"Now, as I explained before, we will be starting the year with a knowledge test. Don't worry if you get any of the answers wrong, since it won't be counted towards your grade" Iruka said.

The young teacher starting walking down the aisle, handing out papers to desks on both sides, and pretty soon he made it to the three in the back, nodding at them and giving them copies as well.

Sasuke passed two for her and Naruto down without hesitation, and almost instantly started writing down answers. Sakura frowned as she gave one to Naruto and began to read over the questions on the other one.

 **1\. By who was the village of Konoha founded?**

Cursing herself for not having better prepared to enter the academy, she suddenly wished she had read some books about shinobi and not only the fantasy ones she always had her head stuck in.

 **2\. What was the signature jutsu of the fourth Hokage, and how did it help Konoha during the second shinobi war?**

 _I don't know the answers to any of these questions!_ she fretted internally.

Instantly she could feel a peculiar sort of guilt and sadness from inner Hermione.

" _I'm sorry Sakura. My supposed intelligence is useless. I know no more than you. I wish I could help"_ inner Hermione said.

Sakura didn't know what to do. She'd always relied on Hermione for answers, the bright witch knowing seemingly everything. Reading through the rest of the questions, her spirit sunk even more.

 **3\. Name three major shinobi clans in Konoha**

 **4\. What is the meaning of the word Konohagakure?**

 **5\. What are the different ranks of a shinobi, in order from weakest to most powerful?**

 **6\. What is Shinobi rule #4?**

 **7\. Name at least two of the previous Hokages**

 **8\. If your opponent was a wind-type ninjutsu user, what would be the most effective element against them?**

 **9\. Name at least five jutsu you know of**

 **10\. State the 'Will of Fire'**

Sakura grimaced. She knew the answers to question four and seven, which she quickly wrote down, but the others were completely unknown to her. Was she really this far behind the clan-born kids?

" _Don't let this get to you Sakura. I promise we'll go to the library tonight and see what we can learn"_ inner Hermione said.

Sakura flipped her paper back onto the blank side and sunk back into her chair, hoping Sasuke or Naruto wouldn't see how few of the questions she'd filled out.

To her shame, Iruka was looking around the room and he caught her eye, noticing that she had finished way too early to be done the questions. He gave her an encouraging smile, but Sakura quickly turned away, cheeks flushing. She didn't need his pity.

To her side, she saw Sasuke also finishing and flipping over his page. But in contrast to hers, she saw neat writing in every single blank space, all the questions answered. Her lower lip trembled slightly, and she bit it to stop herself from showing the weakness.

By now Naruto had finished too, not bothering to flip his over, and even though he hadn't filled out all the questions, she saw that it was still more than she had.

Iruka came around again, collecting the sheets from all the students. Sakura purposely made sure not to meet his eyes as she handed him hers.

"That was so much easier than I expected" Sasuke said laughingly to her and Naruto. Sakura smiled at him as Naruto laughed along, but it felt forced.

Iruka hushed the class and made his way back to the front, stacking the papers in a neat pile on his desk.

"I'm sure everyone did very well," he praised, and Sakura gulped, "so now we're going to move onto some Chakra control exercises before going outside for a little bit of training and a special surprise to end our first day."

Sakura glanced at the clock hanging by the door. Barely fifteen minutes had passed, so how long would the Chakra control exercises and 'surprise' take? She knew the academy lasted about six hours, from nine in the morning to three in the afternoon, so perhaps they would be getting dismissed early today?

"Ok, now I would like everyone to please sit on top of their desks, with both legs crossed. Can everyone do this?" Iruka said, instructing them while demonstrating himself by climbing on top of his own desk.

The class shifted uneasily at his unorthodox instructions, and looked hesitant to follow in what they had been taught was an improper thing to do.

"Come on now, everyone up on their desks" Iruka said, compelling them.

Sakura was one of the first to do so, awkwardly climbing onto her on desk and sitting with her legs crossed. Sasuke and Naruto followed her example and soon everyone in the room was sitting cross-legged on their desk.

It wasn't that easy actually, at least not as much as she'd thought it'd be. The desk, while relatively stable when she had used it to write on earlier, now swayed slightly on its legs with every motion she made. The pink haired girl found herself unconsciously gripping the edges of the desk to remain balanced.

Sasuke seemed to be balancing on top of his with no problems, although Naruto was holding on just as tightly as her, and so resolving to not be beaten Sakura slowly pried her hands away from the desk and focused on staying very, very, still.

"Great job everyone! Now, I'm sure everyone can feel their chakra pulsing through their systems," Iruka said.

Indeed, it was as if there was some sort of warm and comforting substance travelling throughout her entire body like veins, flowing from her head to her toes and back again. Even as a newborn child, Sakura knew it had been there, and it was much like how she knew there was blood flowing through her veins, except with more awareness.

"but this exercise is something that will hopefully help you channel that chakra at will, and I'm expecting everyone will practice it at home as well" he continued. Iruka got off his own desk while gesturing for them not to, and came around the room again, this time handing out leaves instead of paper.

Sakura examined the leaf he had given her. It hadn't been plucked off a tree too long ago, and the colour was a healthy green instead of the duller, browner, colour a dead leaf had.

"I would like everyone to hold their right hand out, palm upwards, and place their leaves in their palm" Iruka said, instructing them.

Sakura did as she was told, and saw everyone else doing it too, with a few students like Naruto almost accidently dropping the leaf.

"Now try your best to channel the chakra you feel through your palm and into the leaf. It doesn't need to be too much, but once you feel you've accomplished this, turn your palm towards the floor. You want the leaf to stick to it" the teacher said.

Sakura focused on the task and tried to channel her chakra into her palm and the leaf, but it was made harder by the fact that her desk kept wobbling as she tried to keep her balance. She supposed that was the point.

Focusing harder, she managed to guide her chakra to her palm without jolting its natural flow, and with a sense of joy she saw the leaf being surrounded by a faint green glow. Taking this as a sign she should continue, she slowly but surely turned her hand around, making sure the glow didn't suddenly disappear. She could feel the rough texture of the leaf still on her palm, and Sakura grinned at having completed the task so quickly.

Feeling more confident now than after the written test, she tried the same thing with the leaf using her other hand.

 _This really isn't that hard!_ She thought to her inners. Sakura knew they were all smiling proudly at her.

Looking around the room, Sakura noted with surprise that no one else seemed to have finished yet. She had expected at least the clan kids to finish before her, but it seemed their previous training didn't give them an edge in this. Her head lifted a bit and she found herself unconsciously puffing out her chest in pride.

To her left, Sasuke was staring with intense concentration at his leaf, as if he could will it to stick, but Sakura didn't see the same green glow on his hand that she had had. On the other side, Naruto was also concentrating, except unlike Sasuke, his leaf was producing a huge amount of green glow. Sakura almost felt bad for his poor leaf, which seemed to be in pain, shrivelling up and stretching at the same time. She watched as it finally tore in half, and Naruto slumped dejectedly, the green glow disappearing.

"Naruto-san, I think you need to use a bit less chakra" Sakura said, whispering to the blond boy as she leaned over slightly. The desk swayed a bit in the same direction and she had to hurriedly regain her balance. Naruto smiled at her in thanks and tried again, this time with only half the leaf.

He tried again but Sakura could tell he was still using way too much chakra. Soon his leaf was practically unusable, torn down into tiny little bits, and so Sakura gave him hers to try with, since she'd already finished.

Her leaf was quickly destroyed too, and Sakura sighed, exasperatedly amused.

Her and Naruto spent the rest of the chakra control session chatting about different things, and after a while Sasuke joined in, having finally completed the task.

Finally once all the others had finished as well - with the exception of Naruto - Iruka directed them outside and into the backyard of the school, a large courtyard covered in grass. He lead the class to a small section in the corner furthest away from the building, and here he handed out targets, telling them to pin the circular boards on the nearby trees.

Sakura carefully hung hers on a tree that wasn't too far away, while a few eager students put theirs up much further. She wasn't sure if they really just had that much skill or they were just overconfident in their abilities. Probably a mixture of both.

"The next activity we will be trying is kunai throwing" Iruka explained, as he demonstrated the proper way to hold one of the small ninja projectiles. Sakura rubbed a bit of sweat off her hands and onto her pants.

" _Sakura, you've thrown knives before during your adventures as me. In a way, you have been trained just as much as the clan-born children"_ inner Katniss said thoughtfully, not seeming at all worried.

 _Civilian steak knives, not kunai_ Sakura protested.

" _A weapon is a weapon"_ inner Katniss replied.

Sakura picked up one of the kunai in the small pile Iruka had handed out to her. It did look a bit like a knife, albeit with a circle at one end and a narrower handle. She held it in her right hand like Iruka had shown. Surprisingly enough, it fit comfortably in her grip, as if it had been made for her.

Iruka was talking again. "Everyone needs to make sure they are standing behind the line I just drew on the ground, and once I give the signal you can start to throw them at your target. Make sure-"

Sakura didn't listen too closely, switching the kunai from her right hand to her left and feeling the same comfortable grip, although her arm was more awkward. She grabbed the kunai with her right hand again and looked down to make sure she was behind the line.

"When you're ready go ahead" Iruka said, waving towards the line of targets.

The first kunai she threw was way off, not cutting through the air but instead spinning, and it hit the edge of the training board with its flat side, before falling to the ground with a 'thunk'.

Sakura heard Sasuke snickering from his place to her right, and she blushed a tiny bit. Sasuke made his first throw with more skill, the kunai landing solidly within the second inner ring.

 _This is like when Katniss couldn't shoot properly with the new bow during her private training score session. All I need to do is get used to it_ Sakura thought, taking a deep breath and picking up another kunai to throw.

" _Turn your body further away from the target and raise your elbow"_ inner Katniss advised.

Her next kunai landed with a satisfying sound in the second outermost ring. Sakura smiled and threw more, with inner Katniss pointing out what she was doing wrong.

Within a few minutes she had gotten used to the slightly different weight and shape of a kunai, and they were now hitting the inner circles almost every time. Reaching to pick up the last kunai in her small pile, she felt eyes on her. She turned to see Sasuke, who had already exhausted his own supply, watching her, and so Sakura took her time with the next throw.

" _Relax your arm and make sure to flick your wrist more this time"_ inner Katniss said quietly.

The girl took a deep breath, allowing her tense body to relax a bit, and following her inner's suggestions threw the kunai.

The ninja tool whistled through the air like an arrow, managing to almost float, without any spinning at all, despite its speed. As if by a stroke of luck, Sakura watched it hit the bullseye, striking and burying in the center of the innermost circle about halfway to the hilt.

Sasuke seemed surprised if anything, as if hadn't expected her to do so well - even _he_ hadn't managed to hit the very center yet - and Sakura childishly stuck her tongue out at him.

The black haired boy huffed, and walked up to his target to go retrieve the kunai. "Whatever, I still have more combined points" he said petulantly, sticking his tongue out right back at her.

Sakura smirked inwardly, but followed him, stepping over the boundary line to go retrieve her own kunai. As she bent down to pick up the one that had bounced off the board during her first throw though, she saw Iruka approaching.

"Uchiha-san! Haruno-san!" he said angrily, "Did you not hear my instructions to wait until _after everyone_ had finished before retrieving your kunai? Going up while everyone else is still throwing could be potentially life-threatening, especially if you don't even pay attention to your surroundings!"

It seemed as if Iruka was directing it specifically at her, with the way she had turned her back while picking up the fallen kunai. Sakura hung her head down and hoped no one could see her face, feeling blood rush to her cheeks as Iruka glared at them.

"Sorry, Iruka-sensei" she and Sasuke both said, although Sasuke with less regret in his tone.

The teacher softened a bit. "It's fine, just make sure not to do it again. And wait until everyone is finished this time before getting the rest of your kunai" he said sternly.

They both nodded, and made their way back past the dirt line.

The rest of the session passed much the same way, both Sasuke and Sakura finishing a bit earlier than the rest, and then waiting for everyone else to finish before going to retrieve their kunai and doing it again. Sakura smiled a bit as Iruka sensei gathered all the kunai back into a large storage container. Sasuke had decided to spend his time waiting laughing at Naruto, and after realizing the blond boy only laughed along and didn't seem to mind, she had joined in. Naruto really was terrible with the small weapons, and although she thought she would have wilted in his place, seeing as how everyone else was so much better, his pride curiously enough only _grew_ with each missed throw. In fact when one of his kunai had gone so far off course it had landed in the bullseye of a neighbouring target, Naruto had done an impromptu victory dance which had everyone cracking a grin.

Now though, Iruka was leading the entire class away from the school courtyard and into the surrounding forest area, following a small well-traveled path. Sakura glanced excitedly at Naruto and Sasuke beside her as they walked, hoping that this would be the 'surprise' Iruka had mentioned earlier.

It seemed as if it might be, as they entered a pretty clearing which had a dirt circle drawn crudely in the middle and what looked like sticks of varying lengths lying around.

" _Swords, Sakura! Not sticks!"_ inner Ahsoka cried, aghast.

A warm wind travelled through the air, rustling through her short hair, and Sakura felt oddly at peace here in the middle of the woods.

It was a beautiful place too. Although she suspected the grass had stopped growing long ago due to constantly trampling feet, the dirt was neither too dry or too damp, and the trees surrounding the area seemed in a perpetual state of green like all the other trees in Konoha, perfect for climbing into.

"This year, while not in the curriculum, I've prepared a treat for you guys! One of my old friends has volunteered to teach our class kenjutsu, one of his specialties. Can anyone tell me what Kenjutsu is?" Iruka said, seeing as how everyone had by now entered the clearing and gathered around him.

Beside her, Sasuke eagerly raised his hand.

"Uchiha-san" Iruka said, calling on him.

"Kenjutsu is techniques using swords" Sasuke answered.

Inner Ahsoka seemed to excite at that, and Sakura felt a tiny bit of that excitement catch on to her as well.

 _I suppose they really weren't sticks,_ she grudgingly admitted to herself.

Iruka smiled at Sasuke and nodded. "That is correct. Kenjutsu literally means 'Sword Technique', and pertains to techniques that entail the use of swords whether the users be shinobi, or samurai. Kenjutsu is regarded as a branch of bukijutsu." he said. "Sasuke, do you want to explain what bukijutsu is as well?"

Sasuke seemed to glow with pride from being called on again, and he answered immediately. "Bukijutsu refers to a ninja's use of weaponry in combat" he said.

"Very good" Iruka said, praisingly.

He turned to the entire class. "Now, my friend's name is Hayate Gekko, a tokubetsu jounin of our village, and I expect you to give the same respect to my friend as you would give any teacher." he said seriously, looking around at everyone to make sure they were listening.

The entire class nodded, and for a moment there was silence.

A brown-haired boy with triangular tattoo markings on both cheeks raised his hand.

"Yes, Inuzuka-san?" Iruka asked.

"Um, sorry Iruka-sensei, but where is Hayate-sensei?" the boy said, looking around suspiciously as if he expected Iruka's friend to jump out of a bush suddenly.

"I'm not sure where he is, but I'm sure he'll be here shortly." Iruka said with a nervous smile. He looked around for a moment too, as if hoping the tokubetsu jounin would appear, but when it finally seemed as if Hayate wouldn't show up, he sighed.

"I was going to let him explain our training exercise today, but I suppose since he's running late I'll have to." he said.

Iruka gestured to the large circle drawn in the dirt. "As you've probably already noticed, we have a makeshift arena right here. Once Hayate-sensei arrives, you'll all take turns fighting him with a blunted practice sword. He'll take it slower of course, since I'm sure none of you have started studying something as specialized as kenjutsu yet, but it should be a great learning experience" he explained.

" _Sakura! You might finally have an advantage over the others, with me in your head!"_ Inner Ahsoka said exuberantly, making motions with an imaginary lightsaber in Sakura's mindscape.

Sakura laughed a bit to herself. _I don't know, Ahsoka, I've only ever practiced against invisible opponents, I probably won't be much good against an actual kenjutsu master like Hayate-sensei_ she thought to herself.

As Iruka directed all the students to form a sort of ring around the arena, Sakura heard him muttering under his breath.

"Where could that lazy bastard be. He promised he'd help me with the students and he doesn't even show up on the first day!" he said, grumbling.

As if on cue, a figure jumped down from one of the tall forest trees surrounding the clearing, landing in the middle of the clearing.

The first thing Sakura noticed about the older shinobi, was that he didn't look very intimidating. Based on the way Iruka had described him as a jounin of some kind, she had expected what most civilians attached to the word 'shinobi'. She had been prepared for a menacing, hulking brute, not a slightly-taller-than-average man with a navy bandana tied around straight brown hair and a senbon sticking out from the corner of his mouth.

"Yo, Iruka-san" the shinobi greeted, with a raised hand.

" _His non-threatening appearance only works in his favour, remember that Sakura. The people you underestimate are the ones you die at the hands of"_ inner Katniss said.

Wearing only the standard dark green konoha vest and navy outfit, he looked completely non-descript and average, although Sakura supposed with her own pastel pink hair and wide green eyes, she would grow up to look pretty non-threatening too.

" _A good thing"_ inner Katniss agreed.

 _But ninjas are supposed to be scary!_ Sakura complained mentally.

" _You can be plenty scary when you reveal your skills to the opponent, dear"_ inner Hermione said, comforting her.

"Genma-san, what are you doing here? I thought Hayate-san was supposed to come." Sakura heard Iruka ask the newcomer, who she assumed was probably not their missing sensei.

Genma scratched his head. "Uh, Hayate-kun couldn't make it, so he asked me to step in as a replacement since I owe him a favour. I'm not a specialist like him but I can help if you want."

Iruka closed his eyes and groaned. "Great, just great." he said.

"I promise that Hayate-sensei will actually be here to teach you tomorrow" the teacher assured the students, with a dark look on his face. "I'll personally make sure of it."

"Hey! I'm not that bad with kenjutsu myself!" Genma whined, stepping into the dirt circle.

Iruka sighed loudly, before looking around to the students and picking up a wooden training sword from the ground. "I'm going to have you going alphabetically against Shiranui-sensei here, so first up is Aburame-san" he said.

A boy Sakura faintly remembered being called Shino walked calmly up to Iruka and accepted the wooden sword offered.

"I will do my best, Iruka-sensei," he said politely to the teacher, "why? because I see this as an interesting learning experience."

"Of course Aburame-san, go ahead. Genma, if you make any of the kids go to the hospital the Hokage will hear about it" Iruka said threateningly.

Genma, with a senbon still in his mouth, nodded to Shino, and waited for the boy to attack him.

When he did, Sakura was slightly disappointed. She hadn't truly expected any of the fights to be like the ones she had read about, like the duels King Arthur and his knights of the round table fought, or like the lightsaber battles inner Ahsoka always talked about. But she certainly hoped she would perform better than Shino, who was only able to defend against Genma's slow blows, barely having enough time to counter each one.

The rest of the fights proceeded much the same, with Sakura able to count the number of times in total a student had attacked on one hand. And they all ended similarly too, with Genma finally knocking the practice sword out of their hands after a few minutes, and the student forfeiting.

There was one of the other civilian girls in the ring now, struggling to keep up with even the jounin's extremely slowed strikes, her skinny arms not having enough strength to keep her practice blade up. Sakura wasn't paying much attention though, giggling with Sasuke and Naruto over a prank the latter had played on their third hokage himself. Finally, she heard her name being called out.

"Ok, um, next we have Haruno-san," Iruka said, squinting at the list in his hand. Sakura had expected to be going soon, since the last student's surname had started with an 'H' as well, but she still felt her heart clenching in nervousness as she felt everyone's eyes on her as she made her way to the front of the group.

Her hands were sweaty as she stood in front of Iruka, and she quickly tried to wipe the sweat off on her shirt.

"Haruno-san, I realize you come from a civilian clan, and as such I'm sure you can be exempt from these activities, considering it is your first day and I cannot imagine you've had any formal training yet" Iruka said to her in a low voice.

Sakura assumed this worry was because of how the girl who went before her was now crying, but she could feel a distinct sense of indignation coming from all three of her inners. She doubted she would have ever taken up Iruka on his offer, even without the skills of Ahsoka. While getting beaten pretty badly in the ring would be embarrassing, giving up before she started would be even more so.

She shook her head at Iruka without directly looking him in the eyes, and held out her right hand for the training sword. He grudgingly handed it to her, and she entered the ring to face Genma.

The tokubetsu jounin didn't attack, even as she got into a ready position.

" _He's waiting for you to attack first."_ Inner Ahsoka said, " _Sakura, you need to become me again. You have to be Ahsoka."_

Sakura nodded to herself and tried to channel the mindset of her inner.

 _I am Ahsoka Tano_ she told herself. _And across from me is my opponent._

Ahsoka turned the sword around and held it in a reverse grip, imitating the way she would hold a lightsaber. She'd been studying Form V, one of the seven forms of lightsaber combat, since she'd started training. Against a larger and stronger opponent such as Genma, Form V had the advantage of being a variant of Djem So, designed to use an opponent's attack against them.

Ignoring the voice of Iruka behind her, telling her she was holding the blade incorrectly she sprung forward. She was Ahsoka Tano, not _Sakura_ ; as if she gave a shit about how the teacher thought she should hold the practice sword.

Genma blocked her sweeping attack with ease, as she'd known he would, but she quickly retracted her blade and backed up, the purpose having been completed. He'd start attacking her now, and that was the main idea of Form V. Defense immediately followed by a counterstrike.

The jounin did as she'd expected and Ahsoka swung up her sword to meet his, at an angle from which he wouldn't be able to disengage fast enough to attack her open side. What she hadn't counted on though, was how painfully the attack would vibrate through her arm, and she barely had time to counter the jounin's next hit.

Backing up a bit, Ahsoka realized this weapon was different from a lightsaber, which absorbed vibrations. She would have to try and misdirect his attacks instead of meeting them head on.

Waiting for Genma to attack again, she knocked his blade out of the way instead of blocking it, and immediately lunged forward to swipe at him with the side of her own.

The jounin hadn't been expecting the direction the blade would come from, an advantage of Form V fighting, and as such had to jump backwards himself, with a both amused and surprised look on his face.

Ahsoka took advantage of the opening and rushed forward, sliding to duck under his blade and try and pull his feet out from under him. Genma jumped up to avoid her however, and attacked from above. She instinctively held up her practice sword to block the attack as she would have done with a lightsaber, and then immediately remembered that this _wasn't_ a lightsaber. A moment too late, she rolled out of the way, and Genma's attack clipped her painfully on her dominant shoulder. Ahsoka switched her sword to her left hand.

Trying to flip herself back onto her feet, Ahsoka realized her body didn't have the strength to, and so she instead clambered back up to a standing position on her knees, thankful the jounin had waited patiently and not attacked. He raised an eyebrow at her as if asking if she wanted to continue and so she nodded.

Genma attacked again, slightly faster this time, as if to challenge her, and now she had a harder time both defending herself by knocking away his strikes and creating an opportunity to attack. Finally deciding to take a risk, Ahsoka didn't counter his next attack, instead sidestepping it and spinning around to attack him. He was expecting it though, and it was then that she saw just how much he had been taking it easy on the students. Within seconds he had blocked her attack and his practice sword was by her throat.

"Yield?" he asked, not even out of breath and hair perfectly in place.

Ahsoka nodded, knowing when she was outmatched, and now she was Sakura again, a shy smile in place as the other kids clapped for her.

Genma ruffled her hair and she gave the practice sword back to Iruka, walking out of the circle to go sit by Sasuke and Naruto.

"You were so good Sakura-chan" Naruto said with a smile, congratulating her. She thanked him and Sasuke grinned at her too.

The rest of the fights passed by a lot faster to her now that she'd already gone, most of the clan-born kids lasting longer than the civilians. Sasuke was being called up soon enough, and she watched him trade blows relatively well, his athletic skill making up for his lack of training in the area. Naruto of course had to one up everyone though, not yielding when Genma knocked his sword out of his hand, but instead choosing to make it a fist fight, leaping at the surprised jounin. The bandana-clad man didn't look too happy after that and tossed Naruto out of the ring by the scruff of his jacket.

By the time everyone had finished, Sakura could tell it was about three in the afternoon, judging from the position of the sun.

 _The day went by so fast_ she marveled, _and here I was thinking we would have to get dismissed early._

All the other kids were starting to trudge back to the main academy building, and so Sakura fell in, following the trail through the forest all the way back to the area they had practiced kunai-throwing.

As she entered the classroom they'd had the test and chakra control exercises in, inner Hermione reminded her. " _Go find Naruto and Sasuke. You agreed to go get ramen from Ichiraku's with them, remember?"_ she said.

Sakura gasped, looking around the room and not spotting either of them. She'd taken a while to get back, and so she assumed Sasuke and Naruto had already head out into the front courtyard of the school. Grabbing her few belongings, she rushed out of the room and out of the building, stopping at the top of the steps leading into the academy.

 _What if they already left without me?_ She thought, hoping that wasn't the case.

" _Look to your right, I think I see them there"_ Inner Hermione said, causing Sakura to turn her head towards the mentioned area. Indeed, she quickly spotted blond and black hair, both the boys standing next to someone she assumed was part of Sasuke's family based on his dark hair.

She hurried down the steps and made her way through the crowd of parents and children towards them.

"Naruto-san, Sasuke-san" she greeted.

Sasuke smiled at her while Naruto seemed disappointed for some reason. "Hi Sakura-san! This is my Nii-san" Sasuke said, grabbing onto the third person's hand.

The older male who had features similar to Sasuke nodded at her. "My name is Itachi Uchiha. I assume you are Haruno-san, who Sasuke and Naruto were going to get ramen with?"

"Yep! You can call me Sakura though. Haruno-san sounds weird" she answered, nodding back.

Itachi gestured to Sasuke. "Unfortunately our mother wants us back home for dinner tonight, so Sasuke won't be able to go get ramen. You are all welcome to join though, and I will ask if Sasuke can go to Ichiraku's with you tomorrow" he said.

Sakura supposed that was why Naruto had looked disappointed.

"Please come with us for dinner at the compound! Itachi-nii always talks about boring stuff with dad during dinner, and I want someone to talk to too" Sasuke said, looking at them with doe eyes.

Instantly Naruto looked less disappointed.

"Dattebayo! Of course Sasuke-chan" he said excitedly.

Sasuke looked at her.

"I would love to Sasuke-san" she replied, also quite excited.

He grinned at both of them.

"Let's go then! Race you to the compound!"


	2. 2 - a series of lucky coincidences

**[Chapter 2]**

The days at the academy passed by quickly, and soon the last remaining touches of summer had truly disappeared, leaving only crackling leaves underfoot and burnt orange coloured trees. Daylight grew shorter, and the nights grew longer.

Sakura had quickly become closer friends with Sasuke and Naruto, aided in part by how most of the other girls in their year had started fangirling over the young Uchiha. Pretty soon, they were the only two he found bearable.

Inner Hermione had told Sakura with pride that they reminded her of Harry, Ron and herself, the golden trio of Hogwarts.

And as it turned out, their supposed kenjutsu teacher, Hayate Gekko, had never shown up, despite Iruka's promise to make him come. Word was that he had proposed to his girlfriend, and that he was now 'too busy with wedding preparations' to help. As a result, Genma had practically become their new kenjutsu teacher, and with each practice fight against him Sakura knew she was improving significantly.

She'd been training on her own time too, of course. After realizing during their endurance training on the second day of school that she was completely, frustratingly, average in the strength department, Sakura had thrown herself into training. She'd thought she was relatively athletic because of all her running around and adventures in younger years, but she'd quickly learned that she didn't even hold a flame to boys such as Sasuke and even Naruto.

Now, despite her parents complaints, she woke up at five every morning, and came home at ten, determined to catch up. Her inners had only encouraged her, and Sakura could finally feel some of their combined efforts showing. As Katniss, she could hit the innermost ring nine times out of ten with both kunai and her old bow. And as Ahsoka, she'd adapted and strengthened her body enough to allow her to perform some of the more complex Form V movements.

Every day almost felt like routine now, with her waking up before dawn to begin training. She wouldn't let herself waste training time, even when sleeping over at Naruto's house, or more frequently, the Uchiha compound.

It was one of these mornings that the chance encounter occurred. The Uchiha had a multitude of training grounds both within and outside their clan compound, including a large one which was reserved specifically for the main family and whoever they invited. This was the one Sasuke had told her to use. Some mornings, he would accompany her and train alongside her, but today she went alone.

And it was there, practicing with the bow and arrows her father had given to her, that she really and truly met Itachi Uchiha for the first time.

"Is that a bow?" Itachi asked, curiously, dropping down from a nearby tree without a sound and examining the weapon in her hands.

Sakura, by now used to how advanced shinobi would sneak up and appear without warning, nodded.

She'd met him before of course, with the first time being at the academy. But this was possibly the first time he'd ever approached her, their other conversations consisting of meaningless small talk.

"It's a bow, and I have the arrows in the quiver on my back."

"That is a samurai or civilian weapon, is it not? I have never seen a shinobi use something like that. Most would probably consider it too clumsy or useless" Itachi commented, as he continued to watch her from a few meters away.

Sakura shot another arrow into the target she had been aiming for and frowned slightly. "I suppose it is."

"My apologies, I did not mean to offend you."

She nodded, accepting his apology.

"I only meant that it would be easily breakable" Itachi said, continuing. He paused and for a moment there was only the sound of arrows thudding into the target. "Do you know why Shinobi katanas and other non-projectile weapons do not break despite the tremendous force behind them?"

At this, Sakura stopped her shooting and let her arms relax for a moment, turning to face him with a furrow in her eyebrows. She actually didn't know.

"Is it because the weapons are made from stronger materials?" she guessed.

Itachi shook his head. "We infuse our swords with chakra. It strengthens both the metal of the blade and helps to absorb the impact of a hit. I would assume it is much the same with any weapons a shinobi would use."

Sakura thought about it. _It make sense, I suppose, that chakra, the substance which strengthens our own bodies, could also be used to strengthen something else. And it stands to reason that you could insert chakra into a weapon, just like we pushed our chakra into the leaves on the first day at the academy._

She could feel inner Hermione thinking about it too, the young witch's intelligent mind already thinking about ways they could use this information.

"Why are you telling me this?" She asked Itachi.

"Your bow," he replied, walking over to her and taking the weapon from her hands. "You hold yourself back while using it do you not? You fear to break it."

Sakura ignored the urge to grab it back, knowing he wouldn't be careless enough to damage it.

Itachi closed his eyes in concentration, and the hand he was holding the bow with glowed a bright green, much brighter than her leaf had been during the chakra control exercise. Soon the entire bow was glowing the same colour. He dropped the weapon suddenly, letting it fall to the ground. The greenish glow surrounding the bow disappeared as soon as it left his contact.

Sakura didn't hold herself back this time, and rushed over to pick up and cradle the bow, examining it to see if it had been damaged.

Itachi chuckled. "It will take a lot more than a simple fall to break that now."

Sakura could indeed feel the same humming feeling of the chakra she felt beneath her skin every day coming from the bow in her hands. Turning to Itachi again, she looked up at him.

"Could you show me how?" She asked hesitantly.

Itachi nodded and gave her the same small smile she had seen him give to Sasuke on occasion.

"Of course."

He sat down on the ground and folded his legs, not minding the dirt that would undoubtedly ruin the pristine training outfit he was dressed in.

"You've probably done the exercise where you fill a leaf with your chakra and it sticks to your hand," he said, and Sakura nodded affirmatively.

"Good. Did you complete the task?"

"On my second try," Sakura said, remembering the pride she had felt.

Itachi didn't seem either surprised or disappointed. "This is much the same," he explained, "with the difference being that after filling the weapon with your chakra you must separate its flow from the natural one of your body, causing it to circulate indefinitely. This is the hardest part to complete, since chakra has an almost magnetic quality, and will try to return your body instead of circulating within the weapon as a closed system."

He handed her a kunai, hilt first.

"Try it on a kunai first, there will be less material to infuse."

Sakura accepted the weapon and concentrated on moving more of her chakra flow to her hands, and molding it into the kunai as well, trying to keep the flow going at the same time. Keenly aware of how the chakra was moving, she cut off her stream into the projectile, and rerouted the chakra returning back into her body from the metal to join its tail end, creating an infinite loop of chakra within the kunai. It was much easier than it had been at the academy, and Sakura realized it was because she hadn't had the additional task of balancing herself.

She handed the kunai back to Itachi, watching him assessing it.

He nodded silently. "Congratulations, you did it on your first try."

A smile stretched Sakura's face as she finally heard a bit of pride in the older ninja's voice.

Itachi studied her for a moment. "You have extremely precise chakra control it seems. That will definitely be useful for making up for your average sized reserves. From what I know, most shinobi tend drop the weapon at the same moment they cut off the flow, like I did before, since it ensures the chakra will continue to circulate within the weapon instead of uselessly pooling up. However, you seem to have no need for that extra help."

"Oh, that's... cool?" Sakura said meekly, unsure if having good chakra control but mediocre reserves was a good thing or a bad thing.

"It is. It means certain skills many ninja will never excel at will come easily to you."

"Like what?"

"Genjutsu and Fuinjutsu for starters" he said. She frowned a tiny bit, not knowing what those were.

Itachi seemed to hear her unsaid question. "Genjutsu are techniques that use illusions, and Fuinjutsu means sealing techniques."

There was silence for a moment as Sakura thought about that. They both did seem quite interesting, even if not the flashy techniques she had always seen herself using.

"Would you like me to show you some simple techniques as well?" he asked.

Sakura nodded eagerly.

And that was how she spent the rest of her morning training, continuously delighting the Uchiha prodigy with how quickly she learned. Surprisingly enough, her inners remained silent the entire time, recognizing Sakura didn't need any help.

Hours had seemed like seconds, and soon the compound had been awakening with noise, signifying it was time to join the others for breakfast before heading to the academy with Sasuke and Naruto. Sakura had thanked Itachi with a smile, and they had made their way back to the main house together. Secretly, she wished they could have had more time.

The next time she saw him while training early in the morning at the Uchiha compound he had taught her a bit more. The same thing the time after that. Until slowly Sakura began to seek him out instead of leaving the coincidence of their meetings to fate, finding him in the same spot every Thursday morning.

More weeks passed by.

It was early February now, but unlike the lands further to the north such as the Cloud and Mist ninja villages, Konoha saw only blue skies year-round, without a hint of snow. The excitement from the first few weeks at the academy had slowly begun to fade, and now her days were mostly spent training and playing around with Naruto and Sasuke. All three of them had discovered that they shared a sense of adventure and Sakura had since taken part in innumerable pranks, led by Naruto.

That particular morning though, they were practicing Kenjutsu with Genma again. Instead of having them do drills as they normally did, he had instructed them to partner up and have mock fights, with Iruka making sure no one got hurt.

Sasuke and Naruto had been arguing since the day before, and were quick to partner up, eager to fight each other. This left Sakura without a partner, not that she minded, since she had been planning to ask if she could face off against Genma instead.

"Genma-sensei, there's no else to pair up with. Can you be my partner?" she asked him.

She knew the jounin saw right through her, and knew why she was the last one to find a partner, but he didn't seem to mind and easily agreed, leading her to the outskirts of the large clearing they were practicing in.

"Have you been practicing, squirt?" he asked her.

"You bet I have, Genma-sensei! I've got a new move I want to try out" Sakura said, easily slipping into her character of Ahsoka, just like every time she fought him.

Iruka wasn't like Genma in that way. While Iruka preferred to call them formally by their last names as most teachers did, Genma had a much more laid back attitude, referring to his students however he wanted. It had been a source of exasperation for the former many a time, having to apologise to offended parents of the kids.

She crouched down, and waited for him to attack, holding the practice blade in the same reverse-grip she always did. After the first match all those weeks ago, Iruka hadn't talked to her about her fixing her grip anymore.

Genma attacked, and Ahsoka easily spun away, going on the defensive. She didn't plan to seriously attack anytime soon.

Flipping herself back to her feet or away from the path of the blade by using a handspring had been something Ahsoka couldn't do because of her limited strength and flexibility. Until now. She'd even asked Sasuke to help her with them, and today she planned to surprise her teacher.

Knocking aside and dodging a few more of Genma's strikes, while attempting a few half-hearted attacks of her own, Ahsoka tried to seem as if it was Genma forcing her to fall down on the ground by making her scramble backwards to avoid a sweeping blow.

She lay on the dirt, pretending to be exhausted. Ahsoka knew Genma had stopped attacking, moving towards her to see if she was ok, which was exactly what she wanted. The best part about a move such as a handspring, was that you didn't need to use all four limbs, mostly just requiring abdominal strength and a sudden motion to propel yourself upwards. This was especially useful in things such as sword fights and lightsaber duels, where you were constantly holding the weapon in one of your hands.

Sensing that her teacher had moved close enough, she immediately pushed herself upwards and off the ground using her legs, which she had conveniently curled under her when she fell.

She saw Genma's surprised face for a moment as she touched down, before she suddenly realized she'd miscalculated, using an excessive amount of force in her spring. Her body was way too far out from her center of balance, and Ahsoka found herself falling forwards. She dropped the practice sword she held instinctively to make her landing less painful.

Then she saw a navy blue flash and suddenly the world was tilted the right way again. Genma had caught her in a split second and propped her back upright on her feet again. Lazily, he held his sword to her neck.

The personage of Ahsoka disappeared, as she always did when the fight was lost, and Sakura was back.

She nodded and then sheepishly scratched her head when Genma let her go. "Sorry, Genma-sensei, guess I need to practice a bit more."

He chuckled and gestured for her to follow him to a nearby overturned tree, sitting down on the wide log. "It was a pretty good try. I definitely wasn't expecting it."

"Thanks," Sakura said, smiling, "can I try fighting you again? I'm not hurt at all."

"Nah, I think that was enough for an old man like me, at least for now. Besides, I want to ask you about something."

She looked at him curiously.

"I want to know where you learned to use a sword, Sakura-chan. I've looked through your file and it says you come from a civilian family" he said.

Inner Ahsoka blanched. " _Oh no Sakura! What if he thinks you're a spy just because you channel me when you're fighting,"_ she cried.

Sakura thought about it for a moment but then decided to go with the truth. If he was using her given name instead of calling her 'squirt' he was definitely serious.

"I learned by watching someone else fight and copying what they did" she answered honestly.

Genma studied her for a moment before replying. "I would guess the person you copied probably used two much lighter swords, one in each hand, with almost all the weight centered at the hilt. Am I right?"

Sakura nodded, surprised. "Yeah, that's right. And she held the swords in a reverse grip just like I do."

Genma seemed contemplative. "You can't keep using the academy's practice swords then," he said decidedly.

"Huh?"

"As far as I can tell the style fits a little squirt like you pretty well, so I definitely wouldn't want you to learn something else. But if you're really gonna stick with that odd way of fighting these bulky training sticks are probably detrimental to learning it properly."

"You're not going to ask who I was watching fight?" Sakura questioned, a tad confused.

"Well I can't say I'm not curious, since I definitely don't know anyone else in the Konoha ranks who fights like you do. But no, I'm not going to ask you that." He said, smiling. "I'm just doing the best I can as a sensei, you know."

Inner Ahsoka melted at that. " _He's such a great guy"_ she said gushing. " _Almost as amazing as my old master."_

Sakura smiled back hesitantly. "Well, where am I supposed to get a sword like the one you described, Genma-sensei?"

The jounin nodded sagely. "From the only superior-quality weapons store in Konoha. Tenzin's Ninja Outfitter and Weaponry."

Sakura's spirit sank. She had indeed heard of the shop, known for its high quality weapons. However, it was also known for being expensive, and it wasn't like she had loads of money to spare, spending the meager allowance she got on the equipment needed for the academy.

"Oh, thanks. I'll check it out sometime" she said. Genma eyed her as if he knew.

He smiled at her without commenting though. "That's all. You said you wanted to go another round squirt?"

"I'll definitely get the handspring this time" Sakura agreed eagerly, temporarily forgetting about the curious expression her teacher had worn.

She actually had ended up getting the handspring right that time, although she hadn't managed to land a hit on the jounin. Unfortunately, it was only later that night that she remembered her conversation with Genma, reminded by the fact that her sensei was crouched on the windowsill to her bedroom, knocking loudly.

Not quite knowing if she was dreaming or not, Sakura waddled to the window, her blanket wrapped around her, and opened it.

"Genma-sensei?" she asked drowsily.

Wordlessly he handed her a package. She removed her arms enough from the blanket to take it from him. It was lighter than it looked, she noted with surprise, and unwrapped it slowly.

Inside were two identical swords. They looked almost like katanas, except with a straight blade. The hilts were slightly rounded at the bottom, flowing kanji were engraved on the blades, and most of all, they were _beautiful._

All the previous tiredness gone, she stared wordlessly at him, stunned by what he had given her.

" _Don't just stand there! Thank him!"_ Inner Ahsoka said hurriedly, just as surprised as she was.

"Genma-sensei… this…" she started.

Genma only laughed softly. "Don't worry about it, I knew you couldn't afford it. And I'll leave it to you to figure out what it's made of. Just a hint, try using your chakra."

"Do you… just go around gifting random genin in the village expensive gifts?" Sakura asked, not knowing what else to say. She hoped he could feel how grateful she was.

"Nope, only the pink-haired ones" he said brightly. For a moment they stood there facing each other, and then Genma saluted her once, jumping off her windowsill to disappear into the dark.

Sakura remained standing there, swaddled in her blanket and holding the swords for a bit longer, serenely gazing out to where her teacher had disappeared. Finally, she felt the chilly breeze drafting in through her window and hurriedly closed it. In a daze she hid the swords underneath her bed, and clambered back into her bed.

She had a hard time falling asleep that night though, asking herself too many questions she didn't have the answers to.

And even more questions appeared the next morning when she tried to channel chakra into the swords much like Itachi had taught her and they glowed a bright green. The kanji she had noticed the night before, spelled 'light' and 'saber', one on each of the blades.

In her mind, Sakura knew Ahsoka was literally bursting with joy, and the emotions transferred to her. Abandoning any hope of training that morning, she ran into the village in the hopes of finding Genma.

Konoha was relatively silent at this time of day, shinobi being the only ones awake. Despite this, it was only about an hour later that Sakura finally caught a glimpse of a person who looked like Genma, jumping from rooftop to rooftop with incredible speed. She called out his name but he didn't seem to hear and after briefly entertaining the notion of trying to chase after him, she gave up. It'd be years more before she could move that fast.

The next time she saw the jounin was two days later. It was Wednesday after school, and she'd heard loud voices coming from one of the empty classrooms. The door was cracked open, but Sakura would probably have passed right by, if not for the fact that she heard her name. Indecisively wondering what to do, but her curiosity finally winning out, she looked around to see if she was really alone and crouched behind the door, her ear to the crack.

"I'd like to request time to personally train Sakura-chan during kenjutsu lessons" she heard a voice that she knew belonged to Genma say to someone else.

Inner Ahsoka gasped. " _Expensive katanas and now this? I was wrong, Genma is waaaaay cooler than master Anakin was"_

The other person turned out to be Iruka, who let out a long sigh. "You know I can't let you do that, Genma-san. If any of the students told their parents, you could get in trouble for favouritism."

"As if all the other teachers don't favour the clan-born brats!" Genma said, a hint of outrage evident in his voice.

"I know. Even I find myself doing it sometimes. But the point still remains, it is exactly the _clan-born_ kids who have parents with enough influence to make accusations of favouritism an actual problem" Iruka replied tiredly, and Sakura could imagine him running a hand through the ends of his ponytail, just like he always did when he was running out of patience. "I'm sorry Genma-san, I really am, but if you want to train Haruno-san individually, you'll have to do so on your own time" he said.

"I understand. Thank you for your time Iruka-san" Genma said, and Sakura couldn't tell what emotion was in his voice.

"No problem. I'll see you on friday for the kid's kenjutsu lesson. I need to finish grading these papers so go on ahead" Iruka said dismissively.

Sakura heard footsteps making their way towards the door. The realization that she really wasn't allowed to be here, spying on an obviously private conversation came too late.

Scrambling away from the door and trying to casually stand up, it opened suddenly, and a large shadow fell on her, causing her to fall down again.

Looking up, she saw Genma's amused face.

"Don't worry, we both knew you were here squirt. As if an academy student could fool two shinobi" he said, chuckling at her and offering a hand to help her up.

She took the offered hand, blushing and refusing to meet his eyes.

"So? How about Tuesday morning?" Genma asked her as he accompanied her down the empty hall towards the front entrance.

"Huh? Are you asking me on a date, Genma-san" Sakura said, confused.

All three of her inners groaned in exasperation.

Genma joined in, groaning as well. "C'mon, you were listening to our conversation, don't even try and deny it. What do you think I'm asking you? Use your brain!"

"Training?" Sakura said slowly, casting her eyes nervously up to Genma to see if she was right.

"Of course!" Genma said, rolling his eyes at her.

"But I don't have any money" Sakura protested weakly.

"I thought it was pretty obvious I don't care about money when I bought you those swords" Genma replied softly, ruffling her hair with a hand.

She stopped walking and he stopped as well, turning to her to see why she'd stopped. Suddenly she flung her arms around him and buried her face in his vest, feeling surprisingly emotional.

"Thank you, Genma-sensei. Please teach me as much as you can!" she said with a shaking voice, her voice muffled by his clothing.

The jounin laughed and Sakura could feel the vibrations. "I'll try my best Snips."

Sakura suddenly glanced up at him in surprise, her arms around his waist loosening.

"Snips?"

"Padawan and master right? Why do you think I got you swords made from chakra-sensitive metal… not all of us come from shinobi clans" he said playfully.

She thought inner Ahsoka might be crying, and her own eyes were definitely damp. "So you knew all along where I got the idea for my fighting style from?"

"It tickled my mind the first time I faced you, but yeah I eventually dug some old childhood memories up," Genma said, "so thank you for that. I'd forgotten about sweet moments like reading comics growing up, mostly because of the war happening at the time."

He narrowed his eyes at her with no real malice. "I'm extremely impressed though, that you managed to create a completely identical and adaptable fighting style from a few drawn, two-dimensional panels. Even some of the most talented shinobi I know, the copy-nin among them, couldn't have accomplished a feat like that."

Sakura felt pride swelling in her chest. _Ahsoka, thank you…_ she thought to her inner.

She smiled up at Genma. "I guess I just pretended I was actually Ahsoka, and that's how I learned" she said.

The older male looked curious at that as if he wanted to ask another question, but he instead settled for ruffling her hair again. Sakura immediately tried to smooth it down.

"I'll see you next Tuesday morning then! Five-thirty am at training grounds three! Don't be late" he called, walking away and out of sight.

Sakura brushed a fear tears of joy from the corners of her eyes. She wasn't sure if they had come from her or inner Ahsoka, but nonetheless, she fixed a firm smile and ran outside, determined to learn enough before Tuesday to impress Genma.

More time passed. Naruto, Sasuke, Itachi and Genma had started to become almost constants in Sakura's day-to-day life.

The seasons changed, and while most of Konoha's mokuton-created trees stayed the same beautiful green colour, fire country's cherry blossom trees had begun to bloom. Sakura's namesake trees were planted all around the village, and it seemed like there was a constant rain of pink flower petals falling everywhere.

The beauty of her surroundings didn't help improve Sakura's mood at the moment though, as she sat beneath an old tree in the center of one of the clearings. The last few days at the academy had been almost mind-numbingly boring, but as if to make up for that, Iruka mentioned something incredibly interesting today at the end of class.

Shunshin, or the _body flicker technique_ , was a D-rank jutsu which allowed a ninja to move a short distance at an untraceable speed, making it seem as if the user had teleported. Iruka had talked for a few minutes about the theory behind the jutsu, but the bell had rung before he had time to go into more detail. Sakura had never hated the stupid bell more than that moment in all her existence.

This was the first real jutsu Iruka had ever started teaching them, and she was ready beyond belief to finally learn some jutsu beyond the genjutsu and fuinjutsu techniques Itachi had been helping her with.

Unfortunately, she'd cautiously tried it a few times herself, not succeeding in even moving a centimetre.

" _Let's go through the theory one more time"_ inner Hermione recommended, " _ninjutsu theory seems suspiciously similar to the theory of magic so I can try instructing you."_

Sakura reread the notes she had jotted down.

 **chakra temporarily vitalises body**

 **extreme speeds**

 **amount of chakra input = distance + elevation from user to destination**

 **smoke to disguise initial movement**

" _Ok,"_ inner Hermione said thoughtfully, " _vitalising the body with a burst of chakra, that would be like speeding up the flow of chakra incredibly quickly right. In theory it would be the opposite of slowing down chak-"_

Suddenly inner Hermione fell silent, and Sakura knew she had connected the dots between this and something else somehow.

" _Arresto Momentum"_ inner Hermione thought with a grin. " _That's it!"_

Sakura waited for the intelligent witch to explain further.

" _I remember using it in 1998 to try and cushion someone's fall. It didn't work, but I know the theory behind the spell. The literal translation of the spell has to do with bringing a moving force to a stop, and doing the shunshin is as simple as trying the exact opposite."_

 _Ok…_ Sakura thought to her, still confused, _so how do I do that?_

" _Chakra is like a moving stream of water, constantly flowing"_ inner Hermione explained. " _It's extremely difficult to stop the flow of water, and would be really inefficient. The easiest way to stop a stream from flowing would be to cut off its source right? Well at least I'd assume it's the same for both chakra and magic."_

" _Your flow of chakra must have a source, something like the heart pumping it throughout the entire body. All you have to do is find that source and somehow either increase its speed of pumping immensely for a short period of time"_ inner Hermione said.

"The source of my chakra" Sakura said, repeating the words out loud. Closing her eyes, she tried to feel the flow of chakra throughout her body. And indeed she could feel it with a strong awareness, but she was lost as to where the source was

" _Try running along your chakra. It might be like a roll of tape, where it's hard to find the beginning"_ inner Hermione said thoughtfully.

Sakura followed her instructions, starting at her lower stomach and making her way along the main stream of chakra throughout her body.

It all seemed relatively similar although with different consistencies, much like how a river flowed at different speeds.

"I can't find it" she murmured.

" _Keep looking"_ inner Hermione responded.

She examined the main stream of chakra for a second time, this time paying even closer attention. She felt her focus slipping a little, when suddenly she noticed a tiny notch in the chakra she hadn't noticed before.

It was like a small dam, Sakura decided, putting all of her attention on the little detail she'd found.

 _I found something but it feels more like a dam than a pump_ Sakura thought to inner Hermione.

" _It should still work the same way. Opening the dam will increase the flow while closing it further will decrease it. It seems to be about halfway between open and shut right now which would make sense"_ Inner Hermione said.

Keenly aware of that small dam controlling the flow of her chakra now that she'd found it, Sakura tried to find a way to change its position.

It wasn't a physical object so it wasn't as if she could just open or close it, but maybe she would be able to control it just like she could the rest of her chakra. It was a part of her after all.

Sakura would've found it hard to explain in after sight, but almost instinctively, as soon as she tried to control it, to open it, it did.

She could feel the flow of her chakra increase exponentially in milliseconds, and surprised, she opened her eyes again.

Sakura wasn't where she'd been sitting before, maybe a metre away, but the first thing she noticed was that everything seemed to be moving incredibly slowly.

The next was that there was some indescribable feeling pushing her forwards, telling her that she couldn't stop moving or she'd die, and so she took a single step forwards. Suddenly she was metres away from where she'd just been, and she felt compelled to take another step, and then another. It was almost like the world was swimming through syrup and she was soaring through the skies on wings.

Almost detachedly, she noticed she was running now, and still moving at an incredible speed where everything else seemed to stand motionless.

The tree leaves didn't flutter and the few animals she saw didn't move.

Sakura was having a harder time now though, as her unstoppable speed brought her to the edge of the forest and into the heart of the village.

People were moving at a barely perceptible speed to her, but at the speed at which she was moving she knew she couldn't even graze them. It would be like hitting water from a great height.

" _You have to avoid them Sakura. Even if you somehow didn't die, they probably would"_ inner Hermione confirmed, not sounding at all calm and collected like she normally was.

Sakura dodged a few people and buildings, feeling as if she was in a video game. A video game with real life consequences.

Realizing she wasn't slowing down, if anything she was starting to move even faster, Sakura finally started to panic for real.

"Hermione how do I slow down?" She wanted to scream. Except she couldn't. For some reason her words came out fast as well, much too fast to understand.

Inner Hermione was part of her though, so she instinctively felt the same fear as Sakura.

Sakura would have sobbed if she could, as she barely managed to dodge the next group of people and awkwardly spaced buildings, not able to coherently think about anything except somehow getting the hell away from the center of the village and back into the deserted forest she had come from.

" _Sakura! You need to calm now. You have to close the dam!"_ Inner Hermione yelled at her.

Sakura brokenly processed her words due to sheer panic, as she finally escaped the maze of downtown konoha and found herself speeding through a dense patch of forest and towards a large training area.

Trying to feel her way back to the small dam in her chakra was harder than the first time, not aided by the fact that she had to focus on not colliding with any trees.

"I can't find it! I can't find it! I don't know where the dam is anymore!" Sakura shrieked, blindly feeling around her chakra network for where she remembered the notch to be.

She grasped at a random portion of her chakra, and heaved a painful sigh of relief when it turned out to be the small dam.

" _Sakura_!" Inner Hermione called frantically.

Sakura looked up to find someone in front of her. She didn't even have time to take in his features before she frantically slammed down the dam, hoping that inner Hermione was right and it would stop the incredibly fast flow of chakra through her body, which had started to feel as if it was burning her veins from the inside out.

Sharingan red eyes and a worried expression were the last thing she saw before everything went dark.

To say Shisui was surprised when a pink haired suddenly appeared out of thin air in front of him and crashed to the ground, would be an understatement.

He'd been training by himself in his favourite spot, far away from the Uchiha compound and all the dreadfully heavy weights pushing down on his shoulders there, when suddenly there'd been a blur moving towards him, his sharingan eyes barely able to keep up with the movement. He'd been so astounded that he suspected if the little girl hadn't done whatever she had to stop herself, he probably wouldn't have thought to jump out of the way in time.

Staring down at the pink haired girl lying motionless in front of him, Shisui felt a bit of worry overcome him. The sharingan wasn't as good as the byakugan for seeing the flow of chakra through a body, but it was good enough to be able to see that there was something seriously wrong with the girl's flow. As if it wasn't flowing at all.

Shisui narrowed his eyes as he crouched down and checked the girl's pulse. It wasn't there. That was impossible, how could she have been moving towards him one moment and dead the next.

Shisui felt the urge to probe around her body a bit with his chakra to figure out what was wrong with her, because it was just _so interesting_ , but the more rational part of his mind took over, scooping her up like she weighed less than a feather. He rushed towards the Konoha hospital, going as fast as he possibly could — or in other words, very very fast.

When Sakura opened her eyes, she noticed she definitely wasn't in the forest anymore. Everything around her was white and sterile and clean and medical, so she quickly made the leap that she was currently in the hospital.

Suddenly a face appeared above her, and Sakura faintly recognized the red eyes and black hair.

"Itachi-san?" She asked groggily, sitting up with the help of the man beside her.

The unknown person chuckled. "Not me, although I do know him."

He propped up a pillow behind her to help her sit up. "Shisui Uchiha at your service" he said cheerfully.

As she blinked the fog from her eyes Sakura studied his face and noticed he really didn't have much of a resemblance to the Itachi, excluding the eyes and hair that practically everyone in the Uchiha clan inherited.

"Who are you?" She asked suspiciously, looking around the room to see if there was anyone else present. There wasn't.

Shisui lost the smile he had previously worn at the sign of her distrust.

"I believe a better question would be who are you?" He asked seriously. "And what compelled you to try and kill yourself by completely halting the chakra flow of your entire body. I just barely managed to get you to the hospital in time, and you're only alive because one of the nurses was able to stimulate your flow of chakra again, although it's still running slower than usual."

Sakura tried to process the information. Feeling inside her for the little dam, which she found much easier now that it wasn't during a life threatening situation, she realized she'd accidentally pushed the dam down much too far in her frantic panic. It was a wonder her chakra was even moving through her body right now. She subtly opened the dam a bit more to try and let her chakra flow get back up to normal speed, but she saw Shisui's eyes narrow and she knew he had noticed with his sharingan.

"I would also like to know," he said calmly, "how you were able to accomplish such a feat."

With her chakra flow back at a normal speed, Sakura felt as if she could finally think clearly again.

"My name is Sakura Haruno" she answered, nervously biting her lip. She looked away from Shisui's burning gaze. "I was trying to do a shunshin."

The words processed, and Shisui was suddenly struck by the irony of the situation.

Sakura mistook his bitter amusement for disbelief though, and glared at him.

"I didn't just try to do a shunshin, I _did_ a shunshin! I started in that large clearing on the North side of the Konoha forest" she said angrily. Despite having almost killed herself, Sakura knew she must have successfully done the shunshin no jutsu to have moved at such speeds.

Shisui seemed to know the clearing she was talking about, based on the way he frowned thoughtfully at her.

"If that's really true then how do you still have almost entirely full chakra reserves... using a shunshin to cross the entire village should have caused an immense strain in chakra with the rate a body of your size would be expelling..." he said, almost as if he was speaking to himself. "Unless of course you weren't expelling chakra..."

Sakura looked at him curiously. "What do you mean, Shisui-san?"

The Uchiha glanced sideways at her. "How exactly did you think you were supposed to do the jutsu?"

Sakura looked slightly sheepish.

"Well Iruka-sensei didn't explain it very well, just something about vitalizing the body. So I kinda assumed the jutsu required you to speed and slow down your chakra flow really quickly," she said. "And so I found the source of my chakra flow, but it felt kinda like a dam. Those are supposed to slow the flow of water down, right?. It made sense, so I opened it cause I thought that would increase the speed of the flow. Except then suddenly everything was moving really really slowly and I was moving really really fast and I couldn't slow down! I was trying not to bump into things because Hermion- I knew it would probably kill me, and then I realized I had to slow down so I tried to do the opposite of before and shut the dam. But I was freaking out, and I guess I shut it too far because I don't remember anything after that."

Shisui has sat through her explanation patiently, nodding along at parts, but now he laughed incredulously. "After that you completely stopped your chakra flow, Sakura-chan. Which by the way, normally leads to death, since our bodies aren't equipped to function without any chakra. It's the same idea as complete chakra exhaustion."

Sakura blinked a bit at that, the fact that she'd really just had a brush with death not affecting her as much as she'd thought it would.

"How good is your chakra control to do something like that," Shisui said, almost complaining, as he huffed a bit. "I've never even heard of the supposed 'dam' in our chakra flow you found."

Sakura leaned over and tapped his chest in the same location she knew her own was. "It's right there. It's barely noticeable though, and it took me a while to find it."

Shisui wrinkled his forehead for a second as if trying to find the dam, but gave up after a few moments.

"Nope, can't find it" he said, not seeming very perturbed.

He looked over at her small form on the hospital bed contemplatively. "Do you want me to teach you how to actually perform a shunshin?"

Sakura laughed dryly. "I'm guessing you have to expel chakra and not completely stop its flow?"

Shisui grinned, tapping her nose with his index finger. "Clever girl" he complimented. "How about tomorrow at noon? You can meet me at the same training grounds you almost died on."

As if she'd heard him, a young woman with long red-brown hair suddenly rushed in, pushing Shisui out of the way and fussing over Sakura.

 _A nurse maybe?_

"Uchiha-san, I will not allow my patient to train or perform any strenuous physical activity until she is completely healed" the unknown nurse said firmly.

"Ok, ok. No strenuous activity, got it. I'll get going then."

Shisui held up his hands placatingly, but just before he disappeared from the room Sakura saw him wink at her.

The nurse quickly turned to her and started worrying over her, laying out a soft blanket on top of her and sternly telling Sakura that she wasn't to leave the hospital until next Tuesday at the earliest.

Sakura sneaked out the next day anyways, meeting Shisui at training grounds 32, where, as if to aggravate the nurse further, he had her doing a _whole lot_ of strenuous activity.

"You gotta gain a bit of muscle before trying the shunshin" he told her with a dark smile on his face.

Sakura groaned, but did as she was told and started on her first set of one handed pushups.

That day, their training was cut short when a masked ANBU dropped out of nowhere, telling Shisui that the Hokage was requesting to see him.

Later, she found a message from the Uchiha, apologizing and telling her to meet him in the same spot the next week.

Dutifully she showed up, and that day she learned that shunshin really didn't require muscle strength, despite what Shisui had been insisting, and instead it was basically done by expelling a small amount of chakra from the body's pores. This strengthened the muscles to an unbelievable point for a few moments, allowing the user to move with barely perceptible speed, making it seem as if they had teleported.

She also learned that day, that the easiest way to perform the shunshin no jutsu was by using hand signs. Both her and Hermione found themselves wanting to hit their head against a wall after learning that, because in hindsight it really had been pretty obvious that any jutsu they were taught in the academy would have corresponding hand signs to help channel the user's chakra in the right pattern.

But she still hadn't successfully done a shunshin yet, and so Shisui met her there again the week after.

That day, she'd finally managed the jutsu. She'd been ecstatic. And then quickly realized she'd ended up about 30 feet in the air and was falling towards the ground. Shisui had caught her lightly, absorbing the impact perfectly.

"You're lucky I'm here or you might have broken a few bones" he'd said, chuckling. "Next time, focus on where you want to go, yeah?"

And so she came back the week after that as well, and tried it again. This time she ended up exactly where she'd planned, except suddenly she'd been stumbling into a strong body and there had been the cold touch of a kunai to her throat.

"Don't make it too obvious where you're going" Shisui had told her.

At this point Sakura had strongly suspected Shisui had really just grown fond of her, and so she'd casually asked what he normally did every Saturday at noon — the time they had been meeting up.

Shisui, equally as casual, had replied that he was normally completely free. He'd added that if she begged him and called him senpai he'd maybe _think about_ continuing to train her.

Sakura had grinned back and did exactly as he'd said.

"Shisui-senpai! Please teach me!"

And so their meetings soon become a regular occurrence, just like with Itachi and Genma.

Only a full month later did Sakura actually learn through Itachi who exactly her new senpai is.

 _Shisui of the body flicker huh?_ She thought to herself.

It was a good thing Sakura believed in lucky coincidences.


	3. 3 - ok, so maybe I'm not normal

**[Chapter 3]**

Her first year at the academy had passed quickly, and before she knew it'd been the last day of school, all of the students being dismissed by a misty-eyed Iruka.

That summer had sucked.

Sakura wasn't sure how she hadn't noticed, with all the subtle hints her parents had been giving, but it was during the first week of summer break that she learned they had never intended for her to become a shinobi. Konoha had two educational streams, one for ninja and another for civilians. The first year at the academy wasn't mandatory for anyone planning on entering the civilian stream, which only started the year after, but Sakura's parents had sent her anyways, hoping it would set her a bit above the other students. They had been planning to move her to the civilian stream for second year. They had definitely not counted on Sakura wanting to become a shinobi.

They hadn't even outright told her she would be entering a different stream the next year, but Sakura had accidently saw the form being filled out for her mother, and a week-long argument had ensued. At the end her parents had outright refused to fill out the form for her to enter the shinobi stream. Sakura's eyes had blazed with an anger she never knew was inside of her.

She'd sought out Genma first. He'd held her shaking body as she broke down, and calmly told her what her options were. She could enter the civilian stream as her parents wished, or she could cut off all ties with her parents and find someone else to be her legal guardian. Sakura had chosen the second.

Genma couldn't apply to be her guardian, since civilian law demanded that to take custody of a minor you could not be an active ninja above the rank of jounin. It would provide an unstable lifestyle, was the explanation. Sakura knew if only she'd been born into a ninja family it would have been different.

She tried bluffing to her parents first, calmly telling them exactly what she planned to do if they didn't switch her out of the civilian stream at the academy. Her mother and cried, and her father had stared at her as if he couldn't recognize what his daughter had become, but in the end they had refused. They'd said they loved her, but that they were doing what was best for her. Sakura impolitely disagreed.

Naruto and Sasuke had finally found her a week later, crying inside the hollow of an old tree they had discovered a few months ago. She'd told them what had happened. Sasuke had stared at her for a second, frighteningly serious for a moment, before he'd ran away. Sakura had cried even harder when Naruto ran off after the other boy, yelling at him.

But when Sasuke returned, it was with a solution.

Mikoto had agreed to be her legal guardian.

Another week later, the black-haired woman had carefully explained her situation to Sakura over tea. She was a retired jounin, so technically that qualified her under civilian laws. As well, the entirety of her immediate family, with the possible exception of Fugaku, wholeheartedly supported her decision. The problem lay with the elders. Adoption, which she supposed this was in a way, was heavily frowned upon within the Uchiha clan, and especially since Sakura was a few months older than Sasuke, putting her in a position to be heir if Itachi passed away, Mikoto's request would never be approved.

The only option would be to do it in secret. It would mean that no one could know, and to the entire Uchiha clan she could only ever be thought of as 'Sasuke's friend'. Sakura had started crying and thanked her, knowing this was better than she could ever have hoped for. Mikoto had simply moved to sit beside her, calmly brushed the girl's petal-coloured hair through with her fingers, and poured her another cup of tea.

Sakura went home to her parent's house, and packed up all her stuff. That would be the last time she called the place home.

Naruto offered his house for her use, and Sakura moved in with him, not understanding how she could have been lucky enough to make such an incredible friend in just a year.

The rest of the break had been spent actively avoiding Mebuki and Kizashi, and mostly trying to regain a sense of normality by training and hanging around with the others. She'd put on a smile for them all, but more and more, mostly in the times when she was alone, Sakura found herself slipping into the personalities of her inners, pretending she was either Ahsoka, or Katniss, or Hermione. Anyone but Sakura Haruno, who missed her parents more than anything, but had still prioritized her dream above them.

September had rolled around, and her second year at the Academy started.

She'd applied for a scholarship immediately, knowing Mikoto wasn't in a position to financially support her as well. Iruka had been the one to approve her application, telling her in a serious tone that her tuition would be provided, as long as all her overall marks stayed above a ninety.

Months had passed, and her life had been getting back on track. And then it had all come crashing back down in one night.

Naruto and her were staying at the Uchiha compound for the evening, laying some extra futons they had found in the basement by Sasuke's bed.

Sasuke had pulled them both aside.

"Naruto, Sakura, my father will be joining us for dinner" he said quietly, seeming not at all excited by the prospect.

Naruto grimaced but still clapped the black-haired boy on the back. "We won't say anything stupid" he promised.

Sakura laughed at them, raising her eyebrows disbelievingly at Naruto.

The blond corrected himself. "Sakura won't say anything stupid. I'll just try my best to keep my mouth shut" he said, smirking.

Sasuke rolled his eyes but nodded, leading them downstairs to the kitchen, where Mikoto was humming while stirring a large pot of soup.

"Sasuke! You didn't tell me Sakura-chan and Naruto-kun would be staying over" she said happily, as soon as she caught sight of the trio.

Her smile was beautiful, and Sakura found herself once again wondering how she had married someone like Fugaku, who even Sasuke admitted he had never seen smile.

"Do you guys mind helping Itachi set the table?" Mikoto said. Without waiting for their answers she handed a basket full of cutlery, napkins, and bowls to Sasuke, waving them out of the kitchen.

The dining room was decorated elegantly, coloured a pale blue with an ornate wooden table placed in the center. Sakura inhaled deeply. The air was scented nicely too, mostly due to the small bouquets of flowers decorating the room. How Mikoto had time to maintain her beautiful household, on top of all her other duties as the matriarch of the Uchiha clan, Sakura didn't know.

"Nii-san! Kaa-san wanted us to help you set the table" Sasuke cried as soon as he spotted Itachi standing near them. He stuffed the basket his mother had given him into Sakura's arms and jumped at his elder brother, clinging onto him like a koala.

"Itachi-nii!" Naruto called as well, following Sasuke's example to hug Itachi from the other side.

The older Uchiha had dark circles under his eyes, and even as he gave the two boys a pained smile, Sakura could tell something was wrong. He looked over and met her gaze.

"Itachi-nii" she greeted, inclining her head.

Naruto had been the one to start calling him 'Itachi-nii' almost as soon as Sasuke had introduced them, and Sakura strongly suspected it stemmed from the blond boy wanting a family of his own. Sasuke had protested at first, not wanting to share his brother, but when Itachi had smiled softly as he poked the younger Uchiha on the forehead and said that he liked being called that, the boy had huffed and grudgingly allowed Naruto and Sakura to refer to Itachi with the familial suffix.

Setting the table alongside Itachi - Sasuke and Naruto having stopped helping after barely a minute - Sakura found herself worrying over the clan heir.

His long black hair was neatly tied into a ponytail at the nape of his neck as usual, with not a single strand out of place, and he was wearing a simple clan shirt and shinobi pants, perfectly ironed and impeccable, but still Sakura could feel something wrong.

Pausing for a moment as she placed down a spoon beside a bowl, Sakura hesitantly tried to meet Itachi's gaze.

"Itachi-nii, are you alright" she asked quietly, not really expecting much of a response.

So it didn't surprise her at all when he simply nodded before breaking eye contact. Sakura didn't try again, pretending to be utterly focused on setting the table.

As Mikoto brought out the soup she had been making and spooned it out into bowls, Sakura found herself sitting between the Uchiha siblings, Sasuke on her right and Itachi on her left. She was relatively happy that the positioning of the table meant that Itachi blocked Fugaku's view of her though.

The Uchiha patriarch had joined them about a minute ago, sliding off his shoes at the door and padding silently in the room to sit at the head of table. Fugaku didn't move except to turn his head slightly as Mikoto gave him a quick peck on the cheek before taking her place one spot down.

"Haruno-san. Uzumaki-san" he greeted her and Naruto courteously, no real hint of emotion in his deep voice.

"Uchiha-dono" she said, as they both inclined their heads politely.

"Sasuke. Itachi" he nodded to his two sons. Sasuke smiled and nodded back, but Itachi ignored his father. Sakura frowned, had something happened between them.

Mikoto tried to ease the tension around the table, smiling at the younger three, and signalling for all of them to start eating.

There was no talking for a few minutes, the only sound being the slight clatter as a spoon would come in contact with the rim of a bowl, or the sound of a glass being placed back down on the table.

Fugaku finally cleared his throat, turning to his eldest. "Itachi, the elders demand that you attend the next clan meeting. They grow tired of your excuses" he said coldly. Any hopes Sakura had kept for a peaceful dinner disappeared.

Itachi didn't seem bothered by his father's gaze though, staring equally coolly back. "I will attend the meeting at my leisure" he replied. She noticed that despite not having seen him eating particularly fast, Itachi's bowl was already empty.

"You are being groomed become the Uchiha clan leader. You cannot simply attend meetings at your 'leisure'" Fugaku said, scoffing as he repeated the words Itachi had used.

Itachi didn't reply, but the look in his eyes wasn't hard to read. Suddenly Sakura felt a small tendril of fear brush her.

 _It's Itachi. How could I scared of Itachi?_ she thought to herself with a hint of panic.

" _It's not you Sakura, It's me"_ inner Katniss said quietly.

The girl realized it was true. The irrational feeling of fear was coming completely from her inner. For some unknown reason, Itachi in this moment was scaring inner Katniss.

Looking to her other side, she noted that neither Naruto or Sasuke seemed to have felt the same fear the hunter inside her had.

"Itachi, tell us about your missions" Mikoto interrupted, in what had to be a completely blatant way conversation changer. "How's Shisui doing?"

All of a sudden Itachi tensed beside her at his mother's words, and with a frown on her face Sakura looked up from her soup. Itachi had paled significantly. Confused, she reflected on Mikoto's question. Had something happened on one of his recent missions? Maybe Shisui got hurt? It was the only possible answer she could think of.

Sakura looked under the table and saw Itachi's hand shaking violently, even as he clenched them into fists. She'd never seen him lose composure like this before.

Abruptly the black-haired heir stood up, pushing his chair back loudly.

"I need to go" he declared quietly.

Mikoto's forehead wrinkled a bit as she stared up at her eldest son. "Where do you need to go Itachi? Can't it wait until after dinner?"

Itachi simply repeated the same phrase with more volume as he walked towards the doorway of the dining room.

"I need to go." This time when he said it there was no doubt in voice. In a flash he was gone from sight, shunshining away from the compound.

" _He didn't take his shoes"_ inner Katniss noted with surprise.

No one spoke for the rest of dinner, and even Mikoto didn't attempt to break the awful feeling hanging in the air, only staring longingly at the door as if she wished Itachi would return.

"Sasuke, what's up with Itachi-nii?" Sakura asked him later, as the three academy students climbed back up the stairs to his bedroom.

"I don't know," Sasuke replied with frustration evident in his tone. "I never hear anything from his room at night. So I finally went to check on him yesterday, but he wasn't there. I don't think he's slept for weeks."

Sakura's worries grew.

"Maybe it's because of his ANBU missions?" Naruto suggested.

"He's never been like this before" Sasuke said. "I think it's more on account of the clan elders. You heard what my father said at dinner, I don't think they really like nii-san that much."

"But he's a genius!" Sakura said, a bit shocked. "He's probably one of the strongest shinobi in Konoha!"

Sasuke grimaced. "I've heard them though. The clan elders. They call him a coward for some reason."

Naruto growled softly. "Itachi-nii isn't a coward! Your clan elders are stupid!" He said angrily, before looking around nervously to make sure no one else had been listening.

Sasuke scowled down at the floor, and Sakura wordlessly knew he agreed with Naruto.

"Hey, we can use the extra blankets in Sasuke's room to make a ninja fort" she offered, suddenly feeling uncomfortable about bad-mouthing the very clan they were in the house of.

Naruto brightened up instantly. "I brought my expired milk from home so we can prank people!"

Sasuke stared sideways at the two of them. "First of all, we are _not_ going to trick people into drinking your spoiled milk Naruto. And second, _real_ ninja forts aren't made out of blankets" he said arrogantly, his nose turned up a bit.

Sakura shrugged. "We could add traps to the fort?"

Sasuke considered it for a moment, before agreeing with a nod. "Ok, fine. But I get to be the ninja leader this time. Naruto ordered us to eat that gross food thing he made last time, and I was sick for a week."

Naruto grumbled. "Fine. But it wasn't thaaat gross!"

Sasuke entered his room first, sticking his tongue out for a moment before slamming the door in their faces. They both heard a distinctive sound of a lock clicking.

Sakura and Naruto stared at the closed door right in front of them, idiot smiles on both their faces, knowing they had made their friend brighten up a bit.

"Hey! Let us in teme!"

Sasuke didn't let them in for another ten minutes, and even then Sakura suspected it was more to save his own ears from Naruto's screeching then because he was feeling generous,

For the next few hours they worked on setting up their 'ninja fort' in his room, using ninja-wire to hang a large blanket between the closet and the wall. Brushing their teeth in the attached bathroom and then changing into their pajamas, all three of them crawled onto the single mattress they had managed to shove beneath the cover of the fort. Their bodies were still small enough that it wasn't really uncomfortable in the least.

Pretty soon, Sakura could hear Sasuke's even breathing from one side of her and Naruto's light snores from the other. But yet she had a hard time falling asleep herself. There was something, some instinct, telling her that she was forgetting something, that there was something important she had to do. Her mind whirled.

Sasuke had left the curtains open, and so Sakura quietly watched as the room grew darker and darker, soon only illuminated by a faint silver glow. She could see various pieces of her friend's clothing lying around on the floor, with a few kunai and pages of homework adding to the mess. She closed her eyes again, trying to find comfort in the way that Naruto had his arms draped over her, and Sasuke was close enough that every time he breathed it would make a few pieces of her hair flutter.

There was a small noise from the room right next to Sasuke's, and Sakura immediately gave up all pretense of attempting sleep.

" _Itachi!"_ inner Katniss said, absolute certainty in her voice.

Sakura quickly sat up, gently removing Naruto's arm from over her and making sure not to wake either of the boys. The blond mumbled something in his sleep and rolled over. She crawled out of the fort they had made and stood up. Avoiding the traps around the fort which they had carefully set up earlier, Sakura quietly turned the knob of Sasuke's door.

It opened with a loud creak that echoed through the silent house, and Sakura winced. Tiptoeing into the hall and closing the door behind her, she made her way in the direction she had heard the noise.

She knocked quietly on Itachi's bedroom. She heard a rustle from inside but that was it. Sakura waited for a moment before knocking quietly again. Suddenly the door opened, and she found herself staring up into the eyes of the clan heir.

"Can I come in, Itachi-nii?" She asked meekly, looking back down at the floor. He raised the arm he had been leaning onto his door frame with, and she took that as an invitation.

Sakura studied his room. She'd been in here before of course, and she remembered how it had looked the exact opposite of Sasuke's, books arranged neatly on their shelves and not a single item out of place. Now though, there were pieces of shinobi gear scattered all over Itachi's bed.

"Are you leaving on a mission?" Sakura said quietly, turning to face Itachi who had closed the door behind her.

"Something like that" he murmured.

He was wearing a different shirt now from before, with a high collar that hid the bottom half of his face. He seemed to have been in the middle of putting a leather shinobi vest on when she came in. One of the shoulder straps was still undone, and the other hadn't been tightened properly.

Itachi sat down on his bed, the mattress barely sinking from his weight, and Sakura gestured towards his armour, silently asking permission. The Uchiha heir nodded.

Padding over to him on bare feet, she gently moved his unbound hair out of the way and fastened the first strap with nimble fingers. As she started on the second one, Itachi wordlessly picked up twin arm guards from beside him and put them on.

What felt like minutes had probably only taken seconds, but soon Sakura had finished securing his vest, looking it over once to ensure she'd done it correctly before stepping away from him.

Itachi stood up, tying his hair into his standard ponytail in a single fluid motion.

"Was there something you needed to see me about?" He asked quietly.

There were so many things she wanted to say in that moment. She wanted to ask him what was wrong, why he wasn't sleeping, if she could help. She shook her head.

"It's nothing" she whispered, her voice catching.

Itachi stared down at her calculatively for another moment, before suddenly his sharingan spun into existence, onyx black replaced by a blood red.

Sakura started as he moved a hand towards her, but he only poked her forehead softly, like she had seen him do to Sasuke countless times.

"Sleep, Sakura" Itachi whispered.

The pink haired girl crumbled, unconscious. She didn't hit the ground though, caught by a dark haired Uchiha boy who looked down at her form with sad eyes.

"Thank you" he said softly, to no one in particular.

.

"Sakura! Wake up! Sakura! Please wake up!"

Sakura woke up to a whiskered face hovering over hers, and Naruto frantically shouting.

There was no other sound coming from her surroundings except Naruto, but suddenly she heard whispered words echoing in her head.

 _What happened?_ she asked frantically, hoping maybe one of her inners would have the answers.

But although she could feel inner Hermione wanting to tell her something, all three remained suspiciously silent.

"Sakura! Please, I need you!" Naruto's voice came again, and he sounded half near crying.

Emerald green orbs met cerulean blue ones, and suddenly Sakura was aware of what was happening around her.

"Naruto?" She asked. There was something wrong, she could feel it. It was that awful sense of wrongness from the night before amplified a thousand times.

Naruto wiped his eyes with a sleeve. "Sasuke's gone. And -and in the halls there's, -there's" he couldn't continue, and Sakura watched his entire body shake like a leaf.

She sat up and noticed she was still in Itachi's bedroom, lying on top of his neatly made bed. She touched the mattress beneath her. He had sat here just the night before, as she helped him put on his gear. That much she remembered.

"I-I woke up" Naruto said, and there were tear tracks running down his face. "And you guys were both g-gone. And it was so quiet. A-And then I went out in the h-hallway."

All thoughts of Itachi were gone from her head for the moment as she grabbed Naruto's fisted hand in her own. The boy hung his head, his blond hair falling in front of his face.

"I-I thought it was paint" he explained, his other hand grabbing onto hers as well. "But it wasn't. And-And then the door was open and I saw you."

Sakura rolled out of the bed and wrapped her arms tightly around Naruto's body. She could feel his entire body shivering in her embrace.

"We need to find Sasuke" she said.

Naruto nodded shakily. "But… the hallways."

Sakura took a deep breath, trying to think rationally. "I'll lead you" she told the blond boy, who for once didn't protest.

Together, both holding onto the other, they made their way into the hallway and towards the stairs.

The white painted walls of the household had been splattered in blood. There was a body lying halfway up the stairs. There was more than one body. Sakura froze, and suddenly she couldn't move. Her vision filled with red, and she was shaking just like Naruto now. Everywhere she turned there was blood.

Faintly she could hear someone calling her name, but it wasn't Naruto.

" _Sakura! Sakura, listen to me. You need to find Sasuke"_ inner Katniss was yelling at her.

 _There's blood everywhere._ Sakura thought, her mind spiraling frantically, and she clenched her eyes shut.

" _Sakura, focus on my voice"_ inner Katniss said slowly. " _Focus on my voice. That's right."_

" _You've seen blood before, Sakura. You need to take deep breaths. Now, try to channel me. You need to become me, Sakura. I can help you find Sasuke."_

Sakura pretended she was Katniss. She'd seen countless bodies in the games. She'd lost so many during the war. But Sasuke was alive, and she needed to find Sasuke. Naruto was depending on her.

It was hard to keep the mask up though, and as she and Naruto passed by a body with empty eye sockets lying limply in their path, Sakura just couldn't do it anymore. The idea of being Katniss faded and the panic was back in full force.

She heard a low growl in the back of her mind, and suddenly the ground was spinning and she was being pushed out of her own body and into a dark, blank, landscape. It was an odd type of dark surrounding her - there wasn't any source of lighting, but she could still see clearly see in the pitch black. Feeling solid ground beneath her feet, she chanced a look down. A sick feeling grew in her chest. Sakura clenched her eyes shut.

Blood rushed past her ears, and even with her eyes closed she could see all the corpses, all the red splatters. Where was she now? Was she dead?

She heard rustling behind her, and Sakura jolted, frantic.

" _It's ok Sakura, open your eyes,"_ the voice said softly, and Sakura faintly recognized it as inner Hermione.

Painfully slowly opening her eyes, she looked to her side to see a young girl with bushy brown hair wearing a black robe. Inner Hermione. Sakura felt relief sweep through her.

 _Hermione! Where am I?_ She asked, half sobbing, as she tried to wrap her arms around the other girl for support. Her arms went right through inner Hermione's body, as if she was just a spirit. Sakura stared down at her hands and tried to pat her own stomach. She didn't feel any resistance and suddenly she could see her arm sticking out the other side of her body. She started to hyperventilate.

" _Sakura, it's ok. Everything's going to be alright, ok. You're in your mindscape right now. We're all just projections at the moment, so we don't have any physical presence,"_ Inner Hermione said softly. " _We've got you Sakura, don't worry."_

Sakura took a deep, shaky breath, and looked down again. Below her feet dark clouds swirled around, broken by the chaos of black water thundering and crashing through clouded mist. There was something beneath her feet, some kind of glass, keeping her from falling into the hell that waited below her, but Sakura felt as if it could break any minute.

" _Below you is the physical manifestation of all your negative emotions, Sakura. It wasn't this violent before, but well… after what you saw tonight in the outside world."_

Sakura finally looked up, and beside the insubstantial form of inner Hermione, a second figure had appeared. It was Ahsoka, her face painted with delicate white lines, and her blue and white headdress blowing slightly in the nonexistent breeze.

 _My-My body, the rea-outside world, where is it?_ Sakura cried, trying not to even glance down beneath her, scared by what she saw.

Inner Ahsoka didn't respond and slowly walked away, gesturing for Sakura to follow. Within seconds the glass and roiling storm beneath her had disappeared, replaced by a simple black marble. They kept walking.

" _We call it the 'viewing platform',"_ inner Ahsoka said suddenly, and Sakura followed the Togruta's gaze to see another large rectangle of glass set within the black marble floor. " _It's how we view the outside world."_

Sakura rushed towards it and kneeled down, already half-knowing what she would see. This time, there wasn't a dark pit of chaos beneath her. Instead, she could see a young pink-haired girl standing next to another blond-haired child, both of them surrounded by corpses and blood. Sakura shook a bit, remembering her panic, but it was different viewing it from this angle. More detached.

She cast her gaze to the form of Ahsoka beside her, and spoke softly. _What happened to me?_

It wasn't the padawan who answered however, but instead a voice that seemed to echo through the mindscape.

" _You were going into shock, Sakura. It's Katniss, I took control of your body. I'll find Sasuke for you."_

Sakura nodded mutely, her eyes fixed on the scene below her.

In the outside world, Sakura - no, it was _Katniss_ in control of the girl's body now - stepped over the dead corpse of a clan member in front of her, holding onto Naruto's hands tightly to drag him along. It was even worse in the next room she entered, with not only blood covering the walls, but also splattered organ parts.

Katniss kept walking.

"I've got you" Katniss whispered to Naruto, holding onto him tighter. The boy didn't respond, and she could see him trying to keep a hold of himself. Together, they slowly walked past a few more bodies and into the main courtyard of the compound.

Under the light of the moonlight, she could see Sasuke kneeling on the ground, sobbing loudly. Katniss could feel an immense wave of relief sweep over Sakura, still stuck in the back of her own head.

" _Sakura, can you handle this now? I need you to tell me truthfully"_ Katniss asked, and Sakura heard her, the hunter's rasping voice coming from an indeterminable place in the mindscape.

 _Y-Yes,_ she shakily replied, not knowing if Katniss could hear her. She could still see Sasuke through the viewing platform, and he looked to be in so much _pain._

Immediately, there was an odd tugging sort of feeling, and Sakura could feel the glass beneath her feet disappearing. Suddenly she was falling, tumbling. She jolted back into her own body.

The outside world was dark in a different way than the mindscape had been, and it was less detached now, the way she could feel Naruto holding onto her tightly, and the awful silence surrounding the entire compound.

 _Thank you, Katniss,_ the girl thought, feeling the presence of her inner back in her mindscape, exactly where she had just been.

She loosened Naruto's grip from her.

"Naruto, Sasuke's ok" she told him softly, and she could feel the boy's shaking subside a bit.

Spotting the younger Uchiha, Naruto immediately withdrew from her and ran towards the other boy.

"Sasuke!" He yelled, coming to a stop beside him and crouching down.

The other boy ignored his friend, rocking himself on his heels and covering his face with his hands.

Sakura rushed over as well, falling ungracefully on the other side of Sasuke.

"Sasuke, we're here. Sasuke, we're right here" she said, trying to wrap her arms around him. There was silence for a moment, the only sounds coming from Sasuke's ragged breathing.

Suddenly, the black haired boy snapped and violently pushed Sakura away, causing her to painfully skid on the stones of the courtyard. He pushed Naruto in the opposite direction.

"Don't. Call. Me. Sasuke" he shouted through clenched teeth, and Sakura finally caught sight of his eyes.

They were hollow, and full of shock and horror and disbelief. And they were a bright, crimson, _red_. He'd awoken the sharingan

She ignored the scrapes on her body and picked herself off the ground. Sakura couldn't even feel the pain, her mind not processing all the information around her fast enough.

"Sa-Sasuke, w-who did this?"

The boy was glaring at her without really seeing her, and it sent a chill all the way to her bones.

"Nii-san called me Sasuke. Kaa-san called me Sasuke. NII-SAN KILLED KAA-SAN" he screamed, his hands covering his ears as if to protect himself from hearing something.

 _It wasn't for a mission. I didn't help Itachi put on his armour for a mission._

Her mind wasn't working.

Naruto took a step towards the Sasuke and the black haired boy instantly scrambled back, looking like a wounded animal.

"Sasu-" Naruto started.

Sasuke sprinted away from him. Back into the house.

Sakura caught Naruto's gaze, and in that moment the young boy looked so, incredibly, hopeless.

They ran after Sasuke. This time Naruto barely seemed to see the blood and bodies everywhere, and as he stumbled over the leg of corpse and fell to the ground, Sakura immediately helped him up.

Every single one of the corpses had had their eyes removed, hollow sockets staring at them, watching them, _accusing_ them.

She could see Sasuke disappearing into his parents' master bedroom, and her and Naruto stumbled down the hall after him.

They entered the room and collapsed next to Sasuke.

Mikoto and Fugaku were both leaned against the headboard, and it wouldn't have been out of place, if not for the blood splattered over the covers, the gaping holes in their chests, and their empty eye sockets gazing emotionlessly out at them.

And that was exactly how Konoha's ANBU found the three of them hours later, in the middle of a massacre, huddled together and holding on to one another as if to keep afloat.

Sakura was seven when the Uchiha massacre happened.

She didn't feel seven afterwards.

.

Sasuke had never been the same after that night. Understandable, really.

They'd missed the rest of second year at the academy. It had been about a month after the massacre, and Sasuke had thought he'd be ready to move on and try and attempt a sense of normality. He'd taken one step into the classroom and seen gazes full of pity. He'd ran away and it had taken another month for him to recover.

Sakura and Naruto had refused to attend if Sasuke wasn't by their sides.

And so they had stayed by _his_ side.

Sasuke had tried to deny anything had happened the first month, and Sakura had woken up to him yelling 'kai' in the middle of the night, or slicing into himself with a kunai to try and wake himself from a genjutsu.

Sakura had felt helpless.

The weeks after that had been anger. Trying to go get ramen at Ichiraku's, and then minutes later having to restrain Sasuke as he tried to claw out the eyes of a man with a similar build to Itachi. Constantly walking on eggshells around the boy for fear of him lashing out. Naruto and Sakura had taken to adding a '-chan' at the end of his name, as they found it reminded Sasuke of Itachi when they didn't add the suffix.

Sakura had felt as if it were wrong, as if Itachi didn't deserve Sasuke's hatred. She had instantly cleared that thought from her head.

The bargaining phase had started when the Hokage finally decided they were ready for him to question. Sasuke had broke down in front of Sarutobi and his council, and asked them to please bring his family back, that'd he'd give them anything. His life. The Hokage had asked to talk to her after the meeting, and with only a hint of pity had told her that due to her extended absence her grades had dropped below ninety. Her scholarship and means for becoming a ninja was gone. A day later Sasuke paid for her tuition with the Uchiha money he had inherited.

Sakura had felt disgust when she met councilman Danzo. He had looked at Sasuke as if he was just a piece of meat, a pawn to control.

It seemed like Sasuke had skipped over the fourth phase of depression, but Sakura had known that was a lie. It would be a long time before the boy was happy again. "Someday," Naruto had promised her, "I'll make sure he smiles again."

Sakura felt as if Konoha had failed her two boys, and she couldn't forgive her village.

Sakura wasn't a physcologist, but she knew the final stage of grief was acceptance. So she waited patiently for Sasuke to finally come to terms with what had happened. And eventually he did, right before the start of their third year at the academy. He hadn't cried in a while, not since the first few weeks after the massacre, but one morning Sasuke had woken up, had held onto Naruto and Sakura for consolation, and had sobbed.

He wasn't better, Sakura knew that. Not by a long way. There was still that forever burning hatred under his skin, but she didn't begrudge him that. He had made it clear he planned to murder Itachi in revenge, and while Sakura couldn't find it in herself to _approve_ of his self-given mission, she hoped that once he did that anger simmering in his veins would finally dissolve.

And now that Sasuke had finally stopped consuming all her thoughts, Sakura's worries turned to her next problem.

After that night at the compound, she had been hesitant about facing her inners. Being trapped within her own body had stirred chasms of helplessness and panic in her, and for a while, despite wishing she could escape the harshness of reality to become someone else for a while, Sakura had been too scared to become one of her inners. Because in truth _,_ she hadn't just pretended to be someone else that night, she had actually _become_ someone else that night. Inner Katniss had taken over her body.

But with the constant maelstrom of grief around her, Sakura had finally needed to just _escape._ And so she'd had a long overdue conversation with her three inners.

Sakura had always believed, prompted in part by her parents, that she suffered from Multiple Personality Disorder, or possibly Schizophrenia. That the voices in her head _weren't real,_ just imaginary personalities she'd created to fill in her loneliness.

She'd been wrong.

Inner Hermione had calmly tried to explain that they really weren't just fragments of Sakura's personality, or voices that didn't exist. They had thoughts and opinions and memories.

Sakura had never liked not knowing the answers. So she'd researched.

It was exactly two days later that she suspected she had a second soul - well, multiple second souls actually.

Apparently it wasn't exactly common, so as to how _she_ , a completely average civilian girl, had somehow had four separate souls placed in her body, Sakura wasn't quite sure. She definitely didn't have a body mutation, such as multiple brains or duplicate organs - was that even possible? - but her inners had quickly assured her that they were pretty sure they were just a spiritual part of her, having no physical or material reality, and only able to think and will.

After that, it soon wasn't as simple as simply putting on the mask of someone else anymore. The first time Sakura hesitantly tried to give up control to inner Ahsoka, the exact same thing that had occurred at the Uchiha compound happened again. Suddenly, she was being pushed out of her body and she found herself standing in her mindscape, the endlessly stretching, dark barren plain, right next to two other figures. She wasn't above the darkened storm this time though, instead appearing right next to the viewing platform.

Sakura looked down, feeling the same nausea she had felt the first time at viewing her own body from this odd perspective.

Staring down through the glass that rectangle of her mindscape was made from, she felt like some sort of deity, watching over herself. In fact, if it weren't for the reassuringly solid feeling beneath her feet, Sakura would have thought she was floating in midair. She tried to touch herself, but again her body couldn't reach the physical realm, her fingers passing through her chest. The same, slightly odd feeling of and claustrophobia she had felt last time quickly welled up within her, but this time without the added panic of the Uchiha Massacre, it was easier to handle, and she shoved it down. She felt inner Hermione and inner Katniss moving to stand beside her.

Inner Ahsoka, now in Sakura's body, stretched her limbs, feeling as if she was finally awakening from years of slumber.

" _This is nice,"_ she said to Sakura, who was still stuck in the mindscape.

 _Yeah, I'm starting to get used to the feeling of seeing someone else controlling my body,_ Sakura thought back, laughing a bit to try and conceal her slight queasiness. _Try moving around a bit._

Ahsoka danced around a bit, pretending she was fighting a lightsaber battle. She slashed and lunged at her imaginary opponent, and slowly she started to grow accustomed to the different limitations and physical requirements of her new body.

Remembering some of the more difficult movements Form V fighting had, she cautiously attempted a back handspring before jumping up high into the air and spinning head first towards the ground only to flip and land on her feet at the last moment. She staggered a bit at the landing, not quite keeping her balance, but she had done it.

Sakura stared down, stunned at her own body, never having been able to perform such complex movements before. _Ahsoka… this is so much better than when you were only able to advise me on how to copy your movements._

She looked up from the viewing platform of her mindscape and turned to face inner Katniss.

 _Katniss, I need to know if theoretically you guys can take over my body at will,_ she asked seriously.

Inner Katniss frowned contemplatively, and Sakura found herself surprised at how much her inner resembled the actual girl-on-fire. Perhaps it was only her mind casting the physical image of the characters on to the inners? Except of course, Sakura was _within_ her own mind. Her brain started to hurt and she dropped the chain of thought.

" _I think you need to invite us into your body, much like you would invite someone into your house. What you called a 'viewing platform' is actually more of a doorway. Right now, it feels locked to me, but the night of the massacre I think your mind was so frantic and confused that it accidently opened, letting me take your place in your body,"_ inner Katniss said.

 _So how do I get back into my body?_

" _It might be different for you, since technically the body belongs to you, and we are just spectators, locked in your mindscape,"_ the dark-haired older girl said, " _I suspect that you will be able to drop back into your body through the 'viewing platform' if you wish so."_

Sakura bit her lip thoughtfully, staring back down at her body through the viewing platform. Taking a few steps so she was standing roughly in the center, she tried to will herself back into her body.

Almost immediately there came the same drag as before, except now it was pulling her back into her body and not pushing her out. Sakura opened her eyes and found herself back in the physical world, with a sun shining down from above and a soft breeze moving through the trees. It was so harshly different from the mindscape she had just come from, which had been colourless, and dark, and empty.

 _That was really, really, weird_ , Sakura stated as calmly as she could.

She promptly keeled over and vomited.


	4. 4 - it's the thought that counts

**[Chapter 4]**

Sakura brushed her fingers wordlessly over the hitai-ate she'd placed on her bed stand the night before. They were genin of Konoha now.

She picked the headband up carefully, wondering how long it would remain unscratched, as she tied it around her neck, not quite ready to wear it on her forehead like a true ninja yet. Rolling out of bed she entered the single washroom of the flat she and Sasuke and Naruto shared, and quickly brushed her hair and teeth.

Staring calmly at her reflection in the mirror, Sakura felt as if this shouldn't be her body. She'd seen and felt so much in the past few years, how could this innocent pink-haired girl be her?

Hearing raised voices coming from the kitchen, Sakura sighed and made her way out of the bathroom. Upon entering the small living space, she immediately noticed that the table was a mess. It was obvious that Sasuke and Naruto had attempted to make some type of breakfast for her, but that it _really_ hadn't worked out.

"Sorry, Sakura," Naruto sheepishly said, trying to hide the various mutilated fruits and cracked eggs behind him.

Sakura sighed loudly. "Naruto, I thought we all agreed that you should _never_ attempt to cook again after the time we all ended up in the hospital," she said, wincing at how long it was going to take to clean everything up.

Sasuke looked vaguely guilty as she met his eyes, and she spotted the faintest hint of a blush at the tips of his ears.

"The dobe wanted to surprise you," he gruffly explained.

Ever since the massacre, Sasuke had lost almost all of the childness he had possessed beforehand, and as if to make up for it, Naruto had become even more immature. Without a doubt, the blond boy had kept them all from getting trapped in depression.

Naruto clumsily tried to rub off a splatter of what Sakura strongly suspected was tomato from the wall. "Hehe, I wanted to do something special because, you know, we're ninja now!"

Sakura rubbed her eyes wearily, feeling as if this was not the best way to start her morning. She glared disdainfully at the puddle of spilled milk on the floor.

"Let's just grab some ramen from Ichiraku's" she suggested. Naruto grinned a bit guiltily and grabbed both her and Sasuke's arms, dragging them from the small apartment.

"It's team placement day," the blond boy sang happily as he skipped down the stairs of their complex, still dragging the other two along.

Sakura squinted as they exited the building and the bright sunlight hit her eyes. It was exceptionally beautiful weather outside, she noted. Or maybe it was just from the fact that she hadn't woken up at an unnatural hour to go train today, knowing she deserved an extra few hours after having finally graduated the academy.

The sunlight was a soft touch of warmth on her skin, although Sakura knew it would grow warmer around noon, and there was a light breeze drifting through the village, tousling her hair without it being bothersome. The clouds were unusually fluffy and wispy, like spun sugar, and sitting beside her boys as they waited for their bowls of ramen at Ichiraku's stand, Sakura felt more content than she had been in a long time.

There was the faint nudging fear that she and her two best friends would be separated into different teams, but Sakura had quickly dismissed that notion. After the rollercoaster ride of emotions they had been through together, she doubted even the Hokage would be cruel enough to split them apart.

The stand-owner placed down their steaming bowls of noodles in front of the three, and beside her, Naruto immediately started slurping down his portion at an incredible speed. Sasuke had also started to eat, using his chopsticks to bring the noodles to his mouth before blowing on them slightly to reduce the temperature and then taking a polite bite. But Sakura found herself refraining, happy to just watch her two friends enjoy the breakfast. Today was going to be a good day, she hoped.

Sasuke looked at her sideways with a bit of suspicion. "Sakura?"

"Nothing, Sasuke-chan."

She smiled back at him and pulled her bowl towards her, finally starting to eat. The nickname was girly, but once they'd started using it after the massacre, it had stuck. It was at least a way to differentiate them from Sasuke's numerous fangirls, who always screamed after him calling 'Sasuke-kun'.

The three quickly finished up their food, and Naruto grudgingly stopped himself from ordering fourth bowl when the other two shot him a menacing look.

"I'm still hungry~" he complained loudly as they walked towards the academy for what would be the last time they ever entered the building in years.

"You're going to throw up later if you eat more than three bowls at once," Sasuke said, annoyed.

"Our new jounin sensei might give us some type of second test," Sakura added thoughtfully, "or at least I've read that most tend to do that."

Naruto blanched comically, pulling at his hair with his hands. "No way! I barely passed the academy test! I refuse to take another one" he declared deafeningly.

Sasuke pointed his nose in the air haughtily. "We'll be taking the test together dobe. There's no way you'll fail with me and Sakura helping."

Naruto laughed, relieved, and Sakura felt her heart expand at the subtle sign of Sasuke's care. Having entered the academy, Sakura opened the door of their classroom and held it open, bowing mockingly.

"Ladies first!"

The two boys huffed, but the trio made their way into the mostly filled classroom, many of the other students having arrived earlier. They made their way up the steps to their usual spots in the back row, and Sakura saw Iruka enter through the doorway almost right behind them.

"Good morning everyone!"

The class responded with an echoed greeting, and Iruka quickly got to business, arranging a few sheets of paper on his desk at the front of the room.

"Considering I already gave my farewell speech yesterday, I'll make it short today. Together with the Hokage and a few other ninja, I've placed you all in three-man teams, where you will stay and learn under a jounin instructor until you reach the rank of chunin. Now, once I've put you into teams, there will be absolutely no switches, so I don't want to hear a word of protest," Iruka said, making sure to look at everyone.

All the students nodded in understanding, although Sakura could see some of them sweating nervously or holding on tightly to the hands of their friends in the hopes that they would be placed together.

"Once I've called your name, come up to the front of the room and your new sensei will come and collect you. Team one will be Ami Matsuri, Takeo…"

Three students who Sakura didn't really remember ever having interacted with made their way to the front of the class.

Iruka droned on, calling more kids up, with a jounin coming in to lead them away after each group.

"Team seven will be Sakura Haruno, Sasuke Uchiha, and Naruto Uzumaki. Your jounin sensei is Kakashi Hatake"

Sakura heard their names being called out, and with a smile to the two beside her, she started to stand up.

Iruka hastily cleared his throat. "Unfortunately, Team seven's sensei hasn't quite arrived yet, so if you'll just stay in your seats for now."

Sakura blinked a few times confused, but with a shrug sat back down. To her right, Naruto let out a loud groan.

"Our sensei is going to be so lame" he complained.

"Team eight will be Shino Aburame, Kiba Inuzuka, and Hinata Hyuuga. Your jounin sensei is Kurenai Yuhi" Iruka continued.

" _Interesting…"_ inner Hermione commented.

The three were greeted by a pretty red-woman at the front of the class. Iruka named the members of Team nine followed by Team ten.

"Team ten will be Choji Akimichi, Shikamaru Nara, and Ino Yamanaka. Your sensei is Asuma Sarutobi. And... that's it."

This time a man with brown hair who Sakura assumed was related to their Hokage entered. Soon, her, Naruto, and Sasuke were the only ones left in the classroom apart from Iruka.

Their previous teacher ran his fingers through his short ponytail. "Sorry guys, I'm sure your sensei will be here soon. I really got to run though," he said apologetically, gathering up his stuff and going out the door.

And with that they were alone in the classroom.

Sakura smiled weakly at Naruto and Sasuke who both looked pretty annoyed.

 _What did you say was interesting, Hermione?_

" _The team placements,"_ inner Hermione responded.

Sakura had actually noticed what she meant. All the teams from one to four had been completely filled with civilian born children. From Team five onwards however, all three spots had been given to either clan-born students, or ones who had grown up in a shinobi family. She was the only exception.

 _It is weird,_ Sakura thought to inner Hermione, _that if I hadn't become friends with Naruto and Sasuke I would probably have ended up in one of those first teams, already slated to become desk ninja or cannon-fodder._

She removed herself from her thoughts to watch the two boys, Naruto had moved around her to be right next to Sasuke, and was undoubtedly trying to convince the Uchiha to help him do something stupid.

"Come one! Please, Sasuke-chan? Our sensei deserves to be pranked for making us wait so long" Naruto begged, already on his knees in front of the other boy.

"Stop being weird dobe. Get up" Sasuke said, huffing and refusing to meet his eyes. Sakura could tell he had already resigned to helping the persuasive blond.

"I'll help you guys too," she called excitedly, "after all, we're going to have to make an elaborate trap. He's a jounin so he probably won't fall for an easy one."

Naruto turned around and grinned at her before getting up from the ground and dusting off his pants. "See, Sasuke-chan? Even Sakura's helping, so you gotta join too!"

Sakura followed Naruto as he happily pranced to the front of the room, knowing Sasuke was right behind her.

"Ok guys, here's the plan," Naruto said, as he picked up a piece of chalk to draw on the blackboard. "We're going to have a really easily noticeable but unavoidable trap over there by the door, so that our sensei will see it and decide to enter through the window instead. And that's where we'll put two more traps. The first trap by the window will be slow and easy to dodge, making him move to the side, which is exactly where the second trap will be. But that's not all, once the second trap catches him, it will force him to move back into the path of the first slow trap, which will by then be at the perfect spot to hit him as well. Understand?"

Sakura and Sasuke both stared blankly at the board, where Naruto had drawn an elaborate blueprint for where and how the traps worked along with a few notes on possible problems they could face.

His handwriting was completely illegible.

"Uh… Can you repeat your plan Naruto?"

The blond slumped. "C'mon guys!"

Despite the minor complications though, the trio managed to finish all the traps within an hour, and had waited for their sensei to finally show up. When he _still_ hadn't showed up after another half hour, Naruto had groaned but told them they could at least use the time to add a new layer to their already elaborate prank. And so they had added even more traps near the single window the classroom had, creating a chain-event of items that would fall on their late teacher.

Finally, about an hour later, inner Katniss informed Sakura that there was someone approaching. Sakura didn't ask how she knew, just relayed the information to Naruto and Sasuke, and all three of them sat eagerly at their desks, ready to see their hard work pay off.

Soon, there were audible footsteps approaching the open door to the classroom.

"Good, now he should see the obvious prank there and go try the window," Naruto whispered under his breath to them.

Unfortunately a silver-haired ninja wearing a mask walked right through the open door and into their classroom, ignoring the cloud of dust as the chalkboard eraser that had been hanging above the doorway fell on his head.

All three of them stared open-mouthed at their new sensei, incredulous that he hadn't sensed the obvious trap waiting there.

"All that hard work!" Naruto cried painfully, and even Sasuke seemed a bit upset.

 _This won't do,_ Sakura decided.

She determinedly walked up to the jounin, and put both her hands on his solid chest. She pushed him out into the hallway and slammed the door in his face.

"Please use the windows, Sensei," she called through the wood, and she clicked the lock on the door into place, making sure he couldn't get in that way.

Naruto flashed her a subtle thumbs up.

Sakura didn't regret her first impression, even when minutes later all four of them were sitting on the roof and Kakashi cast them a disapproving glance.

"My first impression of you guys. I hate you," he stated emotionlessly.

Naruto tried to hide a snicker and failed. Sakura found herself trying not to laugh as well. Their new teacher's strong words were mostly ruined by the fact that he had tomato sauce dripping from his silver hair and feathers stuck with white glue all over his jounin uniform.

Kakashi glared coldly at the blond haired boy, which only served to make him snicker louder.

"I was going to have everyone share a bit about themselves, but it's probably not even worth getting to know you now, considering you're going to fail my test tomorrow."

"Sorry, Kakashi-sensei. Please forgive us," Sakura said without an ounce of remorse.

The masked shinobi crinkled his eyes at her, but his nose twitched.

"Very well, I'll give you guys a chance to introduce yourself," he declared. He pointed at Sakura. "You first. Name, likes, dislikes, dreams."

She frowned thoughtfully, gazing upwards. "Well my name is Sakura Haruno. I like training because then I can do a bunch of cool moves and beat up Sasuke and Naruto when they act stupid. I dislike cleaning up our shared apartment, because those two," she cast a pointed glare at Naruto and Sasuke, "are messy brats. And well, I guess my dream would be to have a happy life."

Kakashi nodded, outwardly not showing any sign of caring very much. Inwardly though, he wondered what type of shinobi dreamed of having a _happy_ life. Didn't she know what the job entailed?

He crinkled his eyes again. "That's nice, Sakura-chan. You with the blond hair! You're next."

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto!" Naruto said loudly. "I like ramen and my friends and pranking annoyingly late bastards."

Kakashi's eyebrow ticked.

"I dislike cleaning up my room because I can always find everything despite what Sakura says. And my dream is to become the next Hokage!"

The jounin nodded and turned to Sasuke. "Last one."

The Uchiha was silent for a few moments. "My name is Sasuke Uchiha," he said quietly. "I like Sakura and Naruto… sometimes."

Sakura rolled her eyes. That was about as much affection as they would ever get from the gloomy boy. Before _that_ night, it had been different.

"I dislike annoying people and things. And my dream… it's more of a promise. I'm going to avenge the Uchiha clan."

A moment of tense silence hung around before Kakashi broke it with a clap. "Well, nice to meet you three. There isn't really much you need to know about me, so I'll be off now. Be at training grounds three by six tomorrow morning!"

He disappeared in a poof, the only proof that he had been there in the first place being the dripped tomato sauce and loose feathers on the ground which had fallen off at some point during their meeting.

Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto wordlessly met each others eyes.

Naruto grinned nervously. "Well, that was fun?"

Sasuke shook his head. "Ugh. I hope he doesn't fail us tomorrow because of your prank."

"Hey, at least we'll fail together," Sakura comforted them.

They all sighed in unison.

Little did they know, in a small bar on the other side of town, Kakashi was sighing loudly as well.

"I really hate my genin, Genma" the silver-haired jounin complained to his friend.

The senbon-user grinned, taking in his tomato sauce and feather covered appearance. "You got Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto didn't you?"

Kakashi nodded soundlessly and slumped onto the counter of the bartender.

The next morning dawned bright and early, and Sakura found herself urgently shaking Naruto's shoulder to try and get him to wake up at exactly five-forty-five.

"Naruto," she hissed loudly, "we're going to be late!"

The blond mumbled something incoherent and rolled over. Sakura shook him harder.

"Naruto! Wake up!"

"Just a few minutes, Sakura" he groaned, resolutely clenching his eyes shut.

She yanked his blanket away from him, and he just barely managed to grab it in time, leaving him hanging onto one end and her holding onto the other. Sakura tugged again, and this time Naruto rolled out of the bed and onto the floor, still determinedly clutching his blanket like a lifeline.

Even after hitting the ground of his bedroom, the boy curled up into a ball and continued to slumber. Sakura groaned, exasperated, and pinched her nose.

"Sasuke-chan, can you bring some cold water over here?" She called out to the other occupant of the small apartment. Within moments Sasuke appeared, carrying a large bowl filled with ice cold water.

"Hn," he grunted, passing the water to her.

Sakura ripped the blanket off Naruto and dumped the entire bowl of water onto his head in one fluid motion. Instantly the boy sat up, sputtering.

"Agh! What was that for, Sakura?" He cried earsplittingly.

Sasuke stared dismissively down at him. "Hurry up, we're going to be late."

Naruto instantly sprung up, rushing to the door still dressed in his nightgown. "That's right! We've got Kakashi-sensei's stupid test thing today! Let's go," he yelled.

She couldn't help but rub her forehead for a moment before running after him. "Naruto, you need to get dressed, you idiot!"

It was only at about six-fifteen that the three genin arrived at training ground three, all out of breath, and Naruto sporting a large bump on his head. Not that it mattered, Kakashi wasn't even there yet.

Sakura wordlessly sat down and leaned back, lying down on the grass-covered ground of the training area.

"I'm going to catch up on some much needed sleep. Good night guys," she said to the other two. Naruto and Sasuke both followed her example and lay down on either side of her.

"Good night Sakura" Naruto said cheerfully, instantly followed by a loud snore. The blond had the uncanny ability to fall asleep in a second.

And that was exactly how Kakashi found his three genin four hours later, sleeping peacefully in the middle of training grounds three. Despite himself, he found a slight smile on his face.

Sakura woke up to a masked face right above hers. Dark black eyes looked down into her green ones, and she felt the tickle of a few strands of his gravity-defying silver hair brushing against her forehead.

"Wakey, wakey, Sakura-chan! It's not very nice to sleep right through a meeting with your new sensei," Kakashi crowed.

Sakura tried to hit him, but quickly noticed she couldn't move any of her limbs except her neck. Kakashi finally moved away a bit from her, and she noticed that both Naruto and Sasuke were tied up as well, their arms and legs pinned to the ground by ninja wire wrapped around kunai. The masked shinobi quickly woke up the other two boys as well, and soon all three were glaring at him hatefully.

"Ah! My cute little genin team," Kakashi greeted cheerfully. Sasuke glared and Naruto tried to yell but quickly found he couldn't because of a piece of cloth stuffed inside his mouth like a gag.

"As I told you yesterday, I'm going to be testing you today to see if you get to become a true genin of Konoha… or if you get sent back to the academy."

"Get to the point, Sensei" Sakura hissed.

"Never mind, you guys are definitely not cute," Kakashi said, sniffing. Sakura rolled her eyes. The jounin tossed down three scrolls, one landing beside each of them.

"I just gave you your team acceptance forms. Each jounin-sensei is required to deliver three of them, one for each student, to the Hokage by the end of today. Failing to do so will mean the team is officially disbanded and all the students get sent back to the academy to re-do their last year. As you can probably guess, your task is to deliver these in my place, and my mission is to stop you."

Sasuke scoffed a bit, and Kakashi seemed to droop.

"Hey! It's not that easy! There's another twist: Only the first two genin to deliver their scrolls to the Hokage will be accepted. The last one will be sent back to the academy. Of course, there's always the chance that none of you will make it."

"So is it a race, Sensei?"

Kakashi smiled at her, the same annoying eye crinkle in place as the day before. "Almost, Sakura-chan. The thing is, I've given you the wrong scrolls. Each one of you has the acceptance form of one of the others, meaning you will have to fight your teammate and retrieve your own scroll before even attempting to try and make it to the Hokage tower."

The three frowned, and Naruto tried to yell something, which came out inaudible and muffled.

"Well, I gotta be off now. Traps and important stuff like that," Kakashi said, lazily lifting a hand as if to wave them goodbye. He walked away, practically skipping, leaving the trio of irate genin still bound up and immobile.

Sakura groaned.

She couldn't form handseals with the way Kakashi had tied her up, but he hadn't placed any sort of restrictions on her chakra. Carefully sending out a strand of it from her right hand, the way Itachi had taught her during one of their control exercises years ago, she formed a chakra string to connect to one of the kunai the wire binding her was attached to. Sakura yanked it out of the ground with a sharp tug, and relished the freedom she now had over her right arm.

She immediately reached over her body to release her left arm as well, and rubbed it a bit to get her blood circulating again. Within a few seconds the ninja wire around her legs were gone too, and she stood up, wobbling only slightly.

"You guys need a bit of help?"

Sasuke glared, and Naruto yelled something else, muffled by his gag. Sakura laughed and helped un-tie both of them, removing the cloth from Naruto's mouth.

"So what do we do?" She asked, with a hint of seriousness, once all three of them were free.

Naruto looked a bit glum, and Sasuke contemplative.

"I don't either of you to go back to the academy," Naruto admitted. "I'll help you two deliver your scrolls to the old man Hokage."

"Tch. Stupid."

"Sasuke-chan's right Naruto, we're not going to leave you behind. I've got an odd feeling about this though, as if Kakashi didn't tell us something."

Sasuke unrolled the scroll their teacher had tossed him and quickly scanned over its contents. "Well, I've got yours Sakura. It seems pretty real, it has a signature and everything, approving you to become an active genin of Konoha."

"Does it mention anything about a team?" Sakura asked, frowning.

"Nothing. Just the individual."

"But Sasuke-chan, aren't genin supposed to be put into teams until they become chunin? That's what Iruka-sensei said, right?"

Sasuke was quiet for a few moments, his brain whirring. "Kakashi was trying to trick us," he suddenly said, with certainty in his voice. "He gave us the wrong scrolls."

"Good thinking Sasuke-chan. I bet he has the real ones on him, and we have to get those before we can bring them to the Hokage."

"It still doesn't solve our problem about only two people being able to pass though."

"We'll figure that out when the time comes," Sakura promised. "For now, let's go steal some scrolls from Kakashi-sensei!"

It was only an hour later that they finally found their sensei, relaxing under a large tree near the outskirts of the village.

"I thought he said he was going to prepare traps to stop us!" Naruto yelled in disbelief.

Sakura rolled her eyes. "He probably guessed we'd figure out that he gave us fake scrolls, so he waited for us to find him."

Sasuke hastily shushed them, as Kakashi glanced up suspiciously from his book for a moment to look around.

All three genin were hiding behind a bush at the moment, planning on how to steal the scrolls from their sensei.

"He's obviously not going to have them in plain sight," Sakura mused, "so the first priority is trapping him long enough for us to search his belongings."

"He's a jounin, we won't be able to immobilize him through force, despite the weak impression he gave us. We have to somehow trick him."

"I can do my signature sexy-jutsu henge!" Naruto offered enthusiastically.

Sasuke was about to harshly turn down Naruto's plan, when suddenly Sakura saw the cover of the book Kakashi was reading. She narrowed her eyes. "Actually, that's not a bad idea Naruto. He's literally reading porn in public right now."

The blond seemed ready to burst with excitement. "Hehehe, I practiced this for so long at the academy. You can count on me, Sakura!"

Sasuke thought about it for a moment, not really able to find any valid counterargument. "Alright, Naruto can try his stupid jutsu."

"Make sure not to peek when he's doing it, Sasuke-chan," Sakura said, laughing. "Ok, here's the plan. I'll set up a fuinjutsu trapping circle in the forest over there. It's relatively simple, so I doubt it will hold Kakashi-sensei very long, but I don't really know how to make it any stronger yet. I'll try and hide the trap with a genjutsu, but it won't work unless you guys keep him completely distracted. Make sure to subtly lead him into the center of the sealing circle, alright?"

Sasuke nodded seriously, and Sakura quickly examined the forest around them. "I'll make it right there," she said, pointing to a small patch of grass clear of any tree roots.

"Ok, on the count of three."

"1"

"2"

Naruto burst into the clearing and pointed his finger straight at Kakashi. "Found you, lazy-sensei!"

Sakura and Sasuke sighed in unison, before the latter jumped out to help his friend.

The battle was on.


End file.
